rage. All the vested interests of the other States were
up in arms. The proposed railway, it was said, would compete with the
Trans-Siberian, with the French railways, with the ocean route to India,
with the steamboats on the Tigris. Corn in Mesopotamia would bring down
the price of corn in Russia. German trade would oust British and French
and Russian trade. Nor was that all. Under cover of an economic enterprise,
Germany was nursing political ambitions. She was aiming at Egypt and the
Suez Canal, at the control of the Persian Gulf, at the domination of
Persia, at the route to India. Were these fears and suspicions justified?
In the European anarchy, who can say? Certainly the entry of a new economic
competitor, the exploitation of new areas, the opening out of new trade
routes, must interfere with interests already established. That must always
be so in a changing world. But no one would seriously maintain that that is
a reason for abandoning new enterprises. But, it was urged, in fact Germany
will take the opportunity to squeeze out the trade of other nations and
to constitute a German monopoly. Germany, it is true, was ready to give
guarantees of the "open door." But then, what was the value of these
guarantees? She asserted that her enterprise was economic, and had no
ulterior political gains. But who would believe her? Were not German
Jingoes already rejoicing at the near approach of German armies to the
Egyptian frontiers? In the European anarchy all these fears, suspicions,
and rivalries were inevitable. But the British Government at least was
not carried away by them. They were willing that British capital should
co-operate on condition that the enterprise should be under international
control. They negotiated for terms which would give equal control to
Germany, England, and France. They failed to get these terms, why has not
been made public. But Lord Cranborne, then Under-Secretary of State, said
in the House of Commons that "the outcry which was made in this matter--I
think it a very ill-informed outcry--made it exceedingly difficult for us
to get the terms we required."[2] And Sir Clinton Dawkins wrote in a letter
to Herr Gwinner, the chief of the Deutsche Bank: "The fact is that the
business has become involved in politics here, and has been sacrificed
to the very violent and bitter feeling against Germany exhibited by the
majority of newspapers and shared in by a large number of people."[3]
British co-opera