Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/242

 the concession of 1903 infringed upon the economic and administrative independence of the Ottoman Empire; he condemned the scheme of kilometric guarantees as an unwarranted and indefensible drain upon the Treasury; he denounced the preponderance of strategic over business considerations in the construction of the line; he made it plain that he had no wish to see the extension of German influence in Turkey. He believed that the Bagdad concession should be revised in the interest of Ottoman finance and Ottoman sovereignty. But there must be no repudiation. "We must accept the Bagdad Railway contract, because there should exist a continuity and a solidarity between generations and governments. If a revolutionary government remains true to the obligations of its predecessor—even if those obligations be contracted by a government of the worst and most despotic kind—it will arouse among foreigners admiration of the moral sense of the nation and will accordingly increase public confidence. Just now, more than at any other time in our history, we Turks need the confidence of the world." Everything should be done to effect a revision of the Bagdad Railway concession, however, and a firm resolve should be taken never again to commit the nation to such an engagement.

The anti-German and pro-Entente proclivities of the Young Turks were expressed in tangible ways. In 1909, for example, the Ottoman Navy was placed under the virtual command of a British admiral, and British officers continued to exercise comprehensive powers of administration over the ships and yards almost to the declaration of war in 1914. In 1909, also, Sir Ernest Cassel accepted an invitation to establish the National Bank of Turkey, for the purpose of promoting more generous investment of British capital in the Ottoman Empire. During the same year Sir William Willcocks was appointed consult