TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY.
ON November 8th last—.that is, on the day on which the German Emperor landed in England—we dealt in a leading article with the possible political aims of that visit. In the course of that article we discussed the rumours that the German Emperor was most anxious to obtain an alliance with this country in some shape or form, in order to adver- tise it to the world, and we hazarded the conjecture that be would probably try to "interest us" in the Baghdad Railway scheme. The German Emperor, we pointed out, was himself deeply interested in the Baghdad Railway and most anxious for its completion. The German Foreign Office, on the other hand. was in a state of no little trepidation lest the Kaiser had gone too far in his Asia Minor policy, and had brought down on himself what it and he most desired to avoid,—the jealousy and hostility of Russia. He was therefore in the position of a man looking about for some sort of a shelter-mound behind which he might find protection, and yet continue to press on his scheme of a railway to the Persian Gulf. "If," we wrote, "he could manage to make Britain appear interested, not merely commercially but officially, in the railway, he would obviously have gone far to secure the pro- tection he needs for his scheme. The Russians are quite as suspicious of us as we are of them, and if Germany could only show Britain to be impli- cated, we should 'draw all the fire' and leave Ger- many to go on with the railway free from protest." In view of these circumstances, we went on to suggest that William U. might conceivably make a proposition which would certainly secure the objects he had in view, and .might say to the British Government:—' I don't ask you to give funds or diplomatic help to the railway. I merely ask you to engage that when the railway is made you will send the Indian mails by the Baghdad route, and will guarantee a payment of, say, £100,000 a year in respect of the services rendered.' Supposing such an arrangement were made, Germany would clearly benefit very greatly. "In the first place, the knowledge of a British postal subsidy would make it possible to raise capital for the railway among British financiers. Next, the grant of a subsidy, as it would be called, could be used as a proof that Britain was not only officially implicated in the railway, but had come to some under- standing with Germany."
Such was the hypothesis with which we dealt,—a hypothesis which was to a considerable extent adopted by other organs of public opinion, and was at any rate very widely canvassed in the Press. The matter, however, appeared to be set at rest, and the whole hypothesis rendered untenable, by Mr. Balfour's speech at the Mansion House on the Monday after the publication of our article. In that speech he gave the strongest possible general denial to all such notions. With a warmth quite unusual in him, he denounced our suggestions as the "wildest and the most fantastic inventions which, I think, even an inventive Press has ever discovered." Needless to say, we did not doubt then, and do not doubt now, Mr. Balfour's sincerity of intention, and we were at first in- clined to imagine that we must have been misled, and that there was, after all, no reason to fear the German Government proposing thttt we should take any share in the Baghdad Railway, or, if it did, of our Government listening for a moment to such perilous propositions. Unhappily, however, during the past week the rumours as to the determination of the Germans that we shall take part in the making of the Baghdad Railway, and shall share with them, or rather bear for them, the animosity of Russia in respect of that scheme, have been revived. In other words, there is a disagreeable feeling in the air that the German Government is going to ask us for something. And no wonder that the possibility of a request from Germany fills men's minds with apprehension, for a bitter experience teaches us that our Foreign Office holds that it is rude and unfriendly—nay, even hostile and provocative, and equivalent to the crime of "stirring up national animosity between two great nations "—to say " No " to Germany The first indication that the question of the Baghdaa "Railway had been, or was about to be, put to us by Germaay was contained in a Reu-ter's telegram in last Saturday's papers. This teleg,eana summarises a lecture. on the Baghdad Railway given at Konigsberg before the Geographical Society by General von der Goltz—a man not likely to speak on slick a subject without official inspiration—in which the lecturer alluded to the fact that the German Anatolian Railway had secured the extension of its line to Koweit, on the Persian Gulf, "after diplomatic neaotiations with Great Britain." He also pointed out that ° the railway would form the direct route between Paris and Bombay, and that "it was probable that the mails would be carried by the railway." That lecture sounds suspiciously like the tuning up of the German official orchestra. Its significance is, however, very greatly enhanced by what appears in the April number of the National Review. With many of the political ideas of that magazine we find ourselves in conflict ; but unquestionably it is singularly well in. formed on all matters connected with foreign affairs, and it is safe to assume that it would not have taken up the question of the Baghdad Railway without good reason. In its opening editorial pages—i.e., the "Episodes of the Month "—it warns the country in categorical terms that the German Government has approached us, or is about to approach us, with a definite proposal as regards the Baghdad Railway. The National Review quotes a state- ment in the Frankfurter Zeitung that this line, or, rather, that section of it—the Konia-Eregli section—which is to be built at once, will be constructed by a syndicate of-con- tractors, in which "the German, French, and other partici- pators " in the enterprise will be represented, and will exercise due influence. The National Review goes on to express its fear that— "The reference of the Frankfurter Zeitung to other partici- pators ' in the Baghdad Railway is a euphemism for the state. ment that the British Government has fallen a victim to Germany in Asia Minor. As a general rule it is impossible to get the Foreign Office to take an interest in any purely British enterprise, but call the enterprise Anglo-German' and Downing Street is at once prepared to play the bagman. Lord Lansdowne's activity in interesting British capitalists in the construction of the Baghdad Railway has long been the talk of the City, and this announce- ment in the German Press may be taken to signify. that our Foreign Minister has achieved the Kaiser's object, and that at last this country has been enmeshed in an enterprise which should have been avoided at all costs, for if persisted in it leads us headlong to disaster. The country is entitled to know without evasion or delay to what extent we are committed. The Baghdad Railway will be a most costly construction, and is without appreciable economic future if we are to believe one of the principal German experts, who declared inter o2ia that there would only be enough traffic for one train a week, which is not suiprisine,, as the line runs through an arid and practically empty plain. Some powerful inducement must therefore have been held out to bring in these other participators,' i.e., the British syndicate."
On this point the National Review goes on to ask whether it is possible that our Government can have undertaken that when completed the Baghdad line shall receive the postal subsidy for the conveyance of mails to India of which the principal part is now divided between the P. and 0. and the French and Italian railways. "Such an arrangement besides committing us politically would involve a sub- stantial transfer of British money to the capacious pocket of Germany, as necessarily the mails would go vid Flushing, Germany, and Austria, reaching Constantinople by a line which is understood to be mortgaged to the Deutsche Bank, and thereafter vid, the Baghdad Railway to the Persian Gulf." Assuming that we have actually had the folly to enter into some sort of agreement with Germany for helping on the construction of the Baghdad Railway an for allowing her access to the Persian Gulf, it is thus that the National Review summarises the situation :— "It would be impossible to exaggerate the folly of this new policy, which is also in violation of pledges given to Parliament. On the one hand we declare that we are in favour of maintaining the status quo in Persia, and that we are opposed to the appear- ance of any Power (meaning Russia) on the Persian Gulf. Simultaneously, and behind the back of Russia, we go to Germany of all Powers, who has no sort of locus standi, and we embark our capital in her unremunerative railway, which our Government has presumably promised to make remunerative by means of a postal subsidy transferred from the P. and 0. This enables Germany to turn round to Russia, in pursuance of her traditional policy, of which we have had endless examples in the Far East, and represent England as the enemy of Russia and herself as the Russian friend, and, moreover, as a friend who is in a position to give a pledge of goodwill by assisting Russia to do
the very thing to which England has announced her opposition- , to appear on the Gulf. We shall see reproduced lathe Middle East the situation of the Far East, when Germany snapped up Riauchau and bowed Russia into Fort Arthur. Similarly, Russia will be ushered into Baghdad, or alternatively into a port on the Gulf, as soon as the German railway is in sight of the sea. We have always maintained that if Russia is to appear on the Persian Gulf it should be by friendly arrange- ment with England. Our statesmen, on the other hand, are prepared to warn Russia off the Persian Gulf, but they are also prepared to place Germany in a position to bring Russia down to the Persian Gulf." •
The allusion to Russia being ushered into Baghdad and. a • port on the Gulf, it must be explained, is based on an allegation that a secret agreement between Russia and Germany exists, under which Germany is bound after an agreed date, on the demand of Russia, to hand over to her all Germany's interests in the Baghdad Railway, and so to turn that railway into a Russian undertaking.
• We do not by any means wish to be understood to endorse all the statements or deductions madebytheNationalReview in regard to this or any other of the matters connected with the Baghdad Railway scheme. It may be that the editor has been misinformed, and that no such negotiations or proposals as he believes to be going on are really taking place. All that we are concerned to say for the present is that till the allegations of the National Review are denied, and till we have the assurance of our Government that they do not contemplate taking any action whatever as regards the construction of the Baghdad Railway, official or semi-official,. the utmost vigilance is required of that portion of the public—we believe it is the vast majority of the nation—which wishes for no further entanglement with Germany, and is determined that Britain shall not be made the lightning-conductor for German animosity towards Russia.
But perhaps it will be asked,—Why should not British investors, if they like, put their money into the Baghdad Railway, and why should we oppose the scheme and again commit the folly of Lord Palmerston and the Suez Canal Most certainly we would not as a nation oppose the scheme, and again we would, of course, allow our in- vestors, if they are so foolish as to contemplate the notion, to sink their money in the Baghdad Railway. That. is their affair, and they have as much right to risk their money freely in a Baghdad as in a Venezuelan or a Chinese railway. But remember, it is not a question of leaving the British investor to buy his experience where he chooses. The allegation is that the British Government, practically for the first time in its history, is to give some sort of official sanction, after the Continental usage, to the construction of the railway, and so to supply Government encourage- ment to the investors. If such a thing is contemplated, and if, as it were, the British Government's name is to figure on the front page of the prospectus, we shall have committed the greatest of indiscretions, and shall be pre- paring for ourselves a British Panama. But until we actually see encouragement, direct or indirect, given to the scheme by our Government, we absolutely and entirely refuse to credit the notion that they have even contem- plated such a policy.
• It is essential that we should tell the Germans that politically we will have nothing whatever to do with the scheme, that Germany must fight her own battles with Russia, and that financially we will also stand neutral, and will do nothing either to persuade or dissuade our investors in the matter of putting their money into this great specula- tion. If the scheme is financially sound, our neutrality will not hurt it. If it is not sound, it would be a crime for our Government to give the slightest encouragement to British investment. For remember, though the Government might only begin by encouraging a syndicate of financiers, who can be supposed able to look after themselves, those financiers are but middlemen, and only act in the matter because they mean later to sell to the small investor. But, it will be said, suppose we stand neutral, and that the railway is made entirely without our aid, where shall we be then ? Why, in a perfectly good position. We shall in any case be the only large users of the line, the patrons whose custom is essential to it paying a dividend; and we may therefore be absolutely certain that owing to this fact our control will be quite as effective as if we had constructed the line. In any case, the line will not be made over our territory, and accordingly the control of the line bestowed by owning 25 per cent. of the stock ;would be purely chimerical. There is only one way in which to treat the German propositions as regards the Baghdad line, whether made direct or through able financiers, British or cosmopolitan, and that is to have nothing whatever to do with them. This being so, the Government, if they are wise, will allay public anxiety by giving the country. an early assurance that the rumours as to their conteiñplated action have no foundation ; and that if at any time they are approached by Germany on the subject of ,the Baghdad Railway they are determined to meet all projects of co-operation with a decided negative.
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