Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/364

 stations for the service of its mines, ports, or railways. It is required to construct elaborate port and terminal facilities at Samsun, on the Black Sea, and at Youmourtalik, on the Gulf of Alexandretta.

There are other respects in which the terms of the Chester grant are strikingly similar to those of the Bagdad Railway concession of March 5, 1903.[44] Lands owned by the Turkish Government and needed for right-of-way, terminal facilities, or exploitation of mineral resources are transferred to the Ottoman-American Development Company, free of charge, for the period of the concession (ninety-nine years). Public lands required for construction purposes—including sand-pits, gravel-pits, and quarries—may be utilized without rental, and wood and timber may be cut from State-owned forests without compensation. As public utilities, the Chester enterprises are granted full rights of expropriation of such privately owned land as may be necessary for purposes of construction or operation. Like the Deutsche Bank, the Ottoman-American Development Company is granted sweeping exemption from taxation, as follows: "The materials, machines, coal, and other commodities required for the construction operations of the Company, whether purchased in Turkey or imported from abroad, shall be exempt from all customs duties or other tax. The coal imported for the operation of the [railway] lines shall be exempt from customs duties for a period of twenty years, dating from the ratification of the present agreement. For the entire duration of the concession the lines and ports constructed by the Company, as well as its capital and revenues, shall be exempt from all imposts."[45]

From the Turkish point of view, the Chester concessions may be justified on the grounds that the new railways will bring political stability to Anatolia[46] and will initiate an era of unprecedented economic progress. From the point