Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/212

 the volume of its traffic. Finally, it objected to the payment of a kilometric guarantee to the German concessionaires while there was no likelihood of its being similarly favored by the custodians of the public purse. The interests of the shareholders of the railway were well represented in the House of Commons by "that watchful dragon of imperial interests", Mr. Gibson Bowles.

Mr. Bowles (Conservative member from King's Lynn, 1892-1906, and Liberal from the same constituency, 1910-1916) was a frank defender of the interests of the stockholders of the Smyrna-Aidin Railway. He believed that investors were entitled to governmental protection of their investments, whether at home or abroad. He left no doubt, however, that he took his stand on high grounds of patriotism as well. He informed the House that "he did not object to the railway, because all railways were good feeders of ships. But this was not a railway; it was a financial fraud and a political conspiracy—a fraud whereby English trade would suffer and a conspiracy whereby the political interests of England would be threatened. It amounted to a military and commercial occupation by Germany of the whole of Asia Minor."[14]

Comparable to the interests of the Smyrna-Aidin Railway were those of the Euphrates and Tigris Navigation Company, Ltd. Under this name the Lynch Brothers had been operating steamers on the Tigris and the Shatt-el-Arab since the middle of the nineteenth century. In the trade between Bagdad and Basra they enjoyed a practical monopoly. In the absence of competition they were able to render indifferent service at exorbitant rates, and there was nothing to disturb their tranquillity except an occasional complaint from a British merchant. But the old order was about to change. The Bagdad Railway concession of 1903 (articles 9 and 23) destroyed the monopoly of the Lynch Brothers by granting to the Railway