Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/35

 *craft system, which long since had been discarded by her European neighbors. In other words, Turkey had not experienced the Industrial Revolution which was the modern foundation of Western society and civilization. But Turkey was victimized by the Industrial Revolution. Her manufactures—with the exception of some luxuries of incomparable craftsmanship—produced by outworn methods, found it increasingly difficult to compete even in the markets of the Ottoman Empire with the cheaper machine-made goods of Europe. The pitiless competition of the industrialized West eliminated the cottage spinner and weaver, the town tailor and cobbler. And yet for Turkey to adopt European methods—to introduce the machine, the factory, and the factory town—was for a time impracticable. There was no mobile fund of capital for the purpose, and even Young Turks were not in a position to furnish the necessary technical skill. As for foreign capital and foreign directing genius, they could be obtained only under promises and guarantees which might still further jeopardize the independence of the Ottoman Empire.[5]

It was not because of a lack of natural resources that Turkey was a "backward nation." The Sultan's Asiatic dominions were rich in raw materials, in fuel, and in agricultural possibilities. Anatolia, for example, is a great storehouse of important metals. A fine quality of chrome ore is to be found in the region directly south of the Sea of Marmora and in Cilicia, constituting sources of supply which were sufficient to assure Turkey first position among the chrome-producing nations until 1900, when exports from Russia and Rhodesia offered serious competition.