Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/255

 The results on the completed sections of the Bagdad Railway were equally promising, as will be indicated by the following table:[20]

Year Kilometres   Passengers  Freight   Gross          Total in                     Tons   Receipts per   Government Operation                        Kilometre       Subsidy (Francs)      (Francs)

1906   200         29,629      13,693    1,368.83     624,028.21 1907    200         37,145      23,643    1,754.44     546,129.77 1908    200         52,759      15,941    1,839.86     529,443.12 1909    200         57,026      15,364    1,936.72     509,565.45 1910    200         71,665      27,756    2,571.43     381,135.58 1911    238         95,884      38,046    3,379.34     238,166.59 1912    609        288,833      57,670    5,315.67     278,785.25 1913    609        407,474      78,645    3,786.53     216,295.17 1914    887        597,675     116,194    8,177.97   2,939,983.00

Figures in italics indicate payments to the Turkish Government of its share of the receipts in excess of the guarantee of 4,500 francs per kilometre.

The improvement in the economic conditions of Anatolia, and the success of the German railways as business enterprises, were sources of great satisfaction and profit to the Imperial Ottoman Government. Not only was the Treasury receiving revenue from the railway lines which had formerly been a drain upon the financial resources of the empire, but the receipts from taxes in the regions traversed by the railways were constantly increasing. As early as 1893 the Ottoman Ministry of Public Works announced that the increase in tithes and the increased value of farm lands in Asia Minor had more than justified expenditures by the Sultan's Government in subsidies to the Anatolian Railway.[21] For those portions of Anatolia which were served by the Railway, the amount of the tithes had almost doubled in twenty years: in 1889, the year after the award of the Anatolian concession, $639,760 was collected; in 1898, $948,070; in 1908, $1,240,450. In