Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/213

 Company limited rights of navigation on the Tigris. Construction of the Mesopotamian sections of the Railway, furthermore, would be almost certain to kill, by competition, profitable navigation between Bagdad and Basra. The course of the Tigris is shallow and winding, subject to heavy rises and falls, and constantly changing with the formation and disappearance of sand shoals. The river journey from Bagdad to Basra is about five hundred miles and takes from four to five days by steamer, under favorable conditions. The distance by land is about three hundred miles and could be traversed by railway in a single day's journey, regardless of weather conditions. For passengers and most classes of freight the Bagdad Railway promised more economical transportation. The Lynch Brothers were determined, however, to resist such rude encroachment on their profitable preserves. In defence of their interests they wrapped themselves in the Union Jack and called upon their home government for protection; they were patriotic to the last degree and were determined "that the custody of a privilege highly important to British commerce would never pass to Germany except over the dead bodies of the principal partners."[15] Overcharge their countrymen they might; surrender this prerogative to a German railway they would not!

British shipping interests, also, were vigorous in their opposition to the Bagdad Railway. A trans-Mesopotamian railway, they knew, would absorb some of the through traffic to the East, and the competition of the locomotive might compel a general readjustment of freight rates. Furthermore, it was one of the avowed purposes of the Bagdad line to acquire the profitable Indian mails concession from the British Government; this would be equivalent to the withdrawal of a subsidy from the steamship lines operating to the East. It was not for their own sake, but for the sake of British commerce, however,