Word: damming
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...dispute was engendered when the J. G. White Corporation of Manhattan announced that it had obtained a contract from Ras Taffari, Prince Regent of Abyssinia (otherwise known as Ethiopia) for Empress Waizeru Zauditu, to build a $20,000,000 dam across the Blue Nile at Lake Tsana...
Whereupon the British Government let it be known that it would permit no nation other than itself to build the dam, holding that it had power to prevent the undertaking by virtue of the Anglo-Abyssinian Treaty of 1902, signed with Negusa Nagasth (King of Kings) Menelik...
...British contention is that the dam, if built, would jeopardize the whole water supply of the Sudan and Egypt, the life blood of those regions; for the Blue Nile, whose confluence with the White Nile at Khartum forms the Nile, is the most important tributary of the main river...
...this irrigation system the Egyptians have seen a grave danger to their water supply, although the British have repeatedly proved that control of water in the drought seasons by no means meant a diminution of the supply. In the new dam project the Egyptians are therefore likely to see a further threat to their riparian agricultural interests...
Whether or not the British have a right to prevent the building of the dam, seems to be a moot point. The conclusion of the Italo-British Treaty, which divided Abyssinia into spheres of influence, has been hotly denounced by Ras Taffari at the League of Nations, of which Abyssinia is a member. Moreover, the Anglo-Abyssinian treaty has been called unilateral (benefiting only Britain) and therefore not valid, according to the League. If this is so, Ras Taffari would merely have to denounce it to make it null and void and Britain could prevent the building of the dam...