86 THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY. 



at Windsor, granting to a German syndicate a con- 

 cession to draw up a report concerning the construc- 

 tion of an iron way, which would pass through the 

 heart of the Asiatic dominions of the autocrat at 

 Yildiz, and forge the much-talked-of link which was 

 to complete the chain of railroad communication from 

 Paris to the Persian Gulf 



I have always regarded it as a cause for regret that, 

 despite the untiring eftbrts of such pioneers of empire, 

 England failed to construct the railway advocated. 

 The British Government could by no means be in- 

 duced to look favourably upon the scheme, and with- 

 out the countenance of the Government British capit- 

 alists fought shy. Moreover, at no time did British 

 railway enterprise receive that measure of approbation 

 from the Porte which that body has been pleased to 

 display towards the schemes of other nations. When 

 Great Britain was alone in the field, British promoters 

 paid scant attention to the wishes of the Porte, and 

 calmly ignored the fact that a railway with its 

 terminus on the Levant, many hundreds of miles from 

 the Turkish capital, was regarded with little favour 

 by the Government through whose territory it was 

 intended that it should pass. 



As time went on rival Powers entered upon the 

 field of railway expansion in the Near East, and 

 not only did the proposed trunk line fail to assume 

 material form, but other railways originally English 

 passed slowly but surely into other hands, so that, 

 whereas the Mersina-Adana, the Smyrna -Aidin, the 

 Smyrna - Cassaba, and the Haida - Pasha - Ismid lines 

 were all in the first instance built with English 

 capital and English material and under English man- 

 agement, the Smyrna- Aidin line is the solitary English 

 concern remaining at the present day. Such a state 



