THE BAGDAD RAILWAY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 282, 8 June 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE BAGDAD RAILWAY.

The following article, taken from a recent London daily, is interesting as showing how groat was the concession granted by the Ottoman Empire to Germany in connection with the Bagdad Railway.

"The Kaiser was, and no doubt is, extremeiy anxious over bis pet project, the Euphrates Valby line, to run from Hamburg to Koweit on the Persian Gulf. Perhaps if we look into the negotiations touching this question we shall better understand his anxiety. If wo take a map of Europe and Asia we shall see that Asia Minor is for Germany the doorway to the Farther East; we shall sec that the two great German railway routes from Hamburg and Frankfort converge at Buda-Pesth, and thence to Constantinople, across the Bospnorus, through Anatolia to Angora and Eregli, where the lina temporarily ends. The concession granted by tlie Imperial Ottoman Government (March sth, 1903) to the Kaiser was for a railway from Haidar Pasha, a terminal port on the Asiatic side ot the Bospliorus, through Anatelia, ovjr Taurus Mountains to Adaua and Aleppo, thence passing through Southern Kurdistan to Nineveh on the headwaters of the Tigris, thence paralleling the river to Bagdad, where crossing over to the Euphrates, the line is to continue southward via Hillah, Kcrbela and Basra, to its proposed terminus at Koweit on the Persian Gull. This a!l looks simple enough, but when the European Chancellories came to examine its provisions thay stood aghast, for they found that it constituted one of the "most gigantic commercial concessions in all history. Not only was the concession granted uncler an Ottoman mileage guarantee of close on a million pounds per annum, but the concessionaires were given, in perpetuity, a tract of land 12.4 miles wide along the entere length of the line —that is, 6.2 miles on cither side of the railway for a distance of fifteen hundred miles. They were also given the exclusive right to cultivate the land within this railwaly zone—lß,6oo square miles in all (11.904,000 acres), and every foot of it, to all intents and purposes, German soil; to work the mines and the forests within tins radius: to grow wheat, tobacco and cotton; to colonise, and to navigate the streams.

The concession admits of utilising all waters along the route for electric purposes, and such power will eventually be used; it is planned for lighting the towns and running the factories. Permission has betn granted for building quays at Bagdad, at Basra, and on the Persian Gulf.

On both sides of the railway line in Mesopotamia lie bituminous and petro-leum-yielding lands of great value, while it is calculated that Anatolia, Syria, Mesopotamia and the Irak can produce more grain than the whole of Russia To this are added the vast possibilities of the cotton supply in Western Xsia Minor. Is it any wonder that the Foreign Offices of London, Paris, and L'etrograd, reading the terms of tho grant, worn greatly alarmed? But British diplomacy is not of the kind that sives itself up to vain regrets. No sooner was this known in Downfng St. than the danger to India was appreciated; for there, too, it was clear that a railway which can throw German goods across the Indian frontier can throw the helmeted infantryman and Krr.pp field-guns as well. The instant, therefore, that the true import of the Turko-German treaty was appreciated ,every resource of the British Foreign Office was put forth to frustrate it. Now, owing to the physical configuration of the shores of the Persian Gulf and to certain existing politcal conditions, the only part at which it would bo at all possible for a railway to end is Koweit. situated in a strategic position at the head of the Gulf, and the capital of a small and semi-independent territory of th.? same name. It is here, then, that the German engineers had planned to end their railway. The construction had be?n pushed forward to Erogli. a town in the Taurus Mountains, at a cost of five millions. Now let us lift the curtain which has concealed one of the great diplomatic mysteries of our time, and we shall see how a British politcal agent, playing a lone hand against the masters of Germany and Turkey, checkmated tbem.

Ono day a British gunboat dropped anchor oft' Koweit, the spot determined upon for tlie terminus of an epochmaking railway system, and a secret agent of the Indian Intelligence Department, as the representative of His Britannic Majesty, then and there concluded a treaty, whereby the Sheikh of Koweit disavowed his allegiance to the Sultan and accepted the protection of Great Britain, as represented by one small gunboat in the harbour. As soon as the treaty was concluded, the British agent ordered four sailors to erect a flagpole; a smail ball of bunting ran up the staff, and. reaching the top, broko out in the Union Jack, and the dream of William the Ambitions was rudely shattered, Twenty-four hours afterwards, the officials at the Foreign Office in Berlin were astonished to receive a note from Downing St. informing them that the completion of the Bagdad railway to Koweit could not be countenanced by His Majesty's Government unless the line, were raternationalised, and a half share handed over to England, becauso Kowtut was now British soil. So the workmen were laid off, and international negotiations The Kaiser knows that witWnt the consent of Britain he will find no outlet for his railway, or Ins ambitions in the direction of Koweit; so his great Bchem ' for territorial, political and industrial aggrandisement in the Fast was shattered.

Tim question now is—Who will carry 't ',n to completion and restore the uncirmt, land of Similar to it. former glory? Xo British-Israelite has any doubt on this point.

Since writing the aliove, news h;i> reached here that the Taurus Kange has been pierced."

am what? A full man. 1 fear nothing. I am I lie sincere expression of nivroll' lam lite. I salute my colonel Tf lion -. ,;irv, 1 will salute death." I Banted to >t»u<\ bareheaded hefore this man. for 1 could find no words. The-> men will return to us with an intellectual honesty non-existent in th-o servile state, and with the KpiritiKili-sin of a new affirmaion of life. AI'STIX HARRISON.