96 THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY. 



As regards the southern extremity of the line, looked 

 at from the point of view of local development, it may 

 be said that in the Baghdad and Basra districts there 

 is a country of vast potential wealth ; but it may with 

 equal truth be said that until the nomadic propensities 

 of the population are given up for those of a settled 

 existence, and the whole country rejoices in the benefits 

 of law and order to a degree which it is to be feared 

 will not be attained under the existing regi7ne, there 

 is little prospect of Chaldaea revelling once more in the 

 abundant prosperity of an almost forgotten past. 



If, then, the probability of immediate returns from 

 local development is not great, it must not be supposed 

 that those whose duty it has been to estimate the 

 prospects from a financial point of view have deceived 

 themselves as to the probable result. Hard-headed men 

 of business, qualified to form a right judgment, are of 

 opinion that working expenses will be covered, though 

 no surplus will for some time be forthcoming, and it 

 is unlikely therefore that the line will be built until 

 these same men of business see where the promised 

 State guarantee, amounting in all to something like 

 £1,000,000 per annum, is to come from. 



And here it is that complications of an international 

 nature arise, and here that Great Britain will eventually 

 have to come to a decision one way or the other — to 

 assume an aspect of friendly co-operation or of hostile 

 opposition. For though it was at one time hoped that 

 a considerable sum might be available for the purposes 

 of the guarantee from the conversion and unification of 

 the Ottoman public debt, it is now generally recognised 



of the Black Sea Basin Convention, and the southern trace of the German 

 line. It is worth remembering that the Eussian Tugovitch proposed that 

 Eussia herself should build the Baghdad line, a suggestion, however, which, 

 despite the supposed favour shown towards it by M. de Witte, was 

 negatived by the Cabinet. 



