Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/75

 *[Footnote: materialize. The distance from that town to Constantinople is longer by sixty-six kilometres than the distance to Smyrna; the latter port, therefore, is the better natural outlet for the products of Anatolia. This diversion of traffic to Smyrna the Anatolia Railway sought to avoid, it is said, by granting discriminatory rates in favor of through freight to Constantinople over its own lines. A rate war ensued between the Anatolian and Smyrna-Cassaba systems, and neither was willing to permit an actual joining of the tracks at Afiun Karahissar, with the result that for years the rails of the two roads lay a comparatively few yards apart. This absurd situation, so obviously detrimental to the interests of the two roads, was remedied by an agreement of 1899. Infra, pp. 59-60. Cf., also R. LeCoq, Un chemin de fer en Asie Mineure (Paris, 1907), pp. 23-24; Report of the Anatolian Railway Company, 1899, p. 3.]*