big tunnels
of Taurus and Amanus are available for narrow-gauge petrol-driven
motors, and the broad-gauge line will soon be complete. Meanwhile
railway construction is pushed on in all directions under German
control, and the Turkish Minister of Finance (August 1916) allocated a
large sum of German paper money for the construction of ordinary roads,
military roads, local government roads, all of which are new to Turkey,
but which will be useful for the complete German occupation which is
being swiftly consolidated. To stop the mouths of the people, all
political clubs have been suppressed by the Minister of the Interior,
for Prussia does not care for criticism. To supply German ammunition
needs, lead and zinc have been taken from the roofs of mosques and
door-handles from mosque-gates, and the iron railings along the Champs
de Mars at Pera have been carted away for the manufacture of bombs. Not
long after eight truck-loads of copper were sent to Germany: these, I
imagine, represent the first produce of copper roofs and utensils. A
Turco-German convention signed in Berlin in January of this year,
permits subjects of one country to settle in the other while retaining
their nationality and enjoying trading and other privileges. In Lebanon
Dr. Koenig has opened an agricultural school for Syrians of all
religions. In the Homs district the threatening plague of locusts in
February 1917 was combatted by Germans; and a German expert, Dr. Bucher,
had been already sent to superintend the whole question. For this
concerns supplies to Germany, as does also the ordinance passed in the
same month that two-thirds of all fish caught in the Lebanon district
should be given to the military authorities (these are German), and that
every fish weighing over six ounces in the Beirut district should be
Korban also. The copper mines at Arghana Maden, near Diarbekr, are busy
exporting their produce into Germany; the coal-mines at Rodosto will
very soon be making a large output.[2]

[Footnote 1: The balance-sheets for 1916 of certain of those railways in
which the Deutsche Bank has an interest have come to hand. They show a
very disagreeable degree of prosperity. The Anatolia Railway Company has
large profits with a gross revenue of 25,737,995 marks. The profit on
the Haidar-Pasha-Angora Line has risen from 42,566 francs per kilometre
to 45,552. The Mersina-Tarsus-Adana Railway has paid 6 per cent. on its
preference shares, and 3 per cent. on i