Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/162

 and not the way into the open, to unlimited possibilities, to the universal mission of the German nation."[36]

There may have been another reason for the opposition of Prince Lichnowsky to the Bagdad Railway. As the owner of large Silesian estates he was agrarian in his point of view. If it were true, as was maintained, that after the opening of Mesopotamia to cultivation, the Railway would be able to bring cheap Turkish grain to the German market, the results would not be to the liking of the agricultural interests of the empire. As Herr Scheidemann informed the Reichstag, there was something anomalous in the Conservative support of the Bagdad Railway on this score, because it was "in most violent contrast to their procedure in their own country, where they have artificially raised the cost of the necessaries of life by incredibly high protective tariffs, indirect taxation, and similar methods."[37] Perhaps Prince Lichnowsky was somewhat more intelligent and far-sighted than his land-owning associates!

There were some Germans who were not opposed to the Bagdad Railway enterprise, but who were opposed to the extravagant claims made for it by some of its friends and protagonists. A typical illustration of this is the following statement of Count zu Reventlow, shortly before the outbreak of the war: "Great Britain, Russia, and France, in order to interpose objections, made use of the expedient of identifying the Deutsche Bank with the German Government. To this there was added the difficult and complicating factor that in Germany itself, in many quarters, the aim and the significance of the railway plan were proclaimed to the world, partly in an inaccurate and grossly exaggerated manner In this respect great mistakes were made among us, which it was in no way necessary to make. The more quietly the Railway could have been constructed the better That it would be