GERMAN DESIGN ON PERSIA

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 276, 27 May 1907, Page 4

GERMAN DESIGN ON PERSIA

Berlin, April 2. Germany, in need of new fields of expansion, has marked down Persia as a favourable country for exploitation, and elaborate plans have been worked out for the promotion of German commercial interests and the extension of German enterprise in the Shah's dominions; These plans are, I understand, on absolutely reliable information, to be carried out by German capitalists supported by the German Government, in spite of the fact that every step forward contemplated by the Germans involves an invasion of the recognised sphere of British influence and an attack on British interests in Persia. German enterprise in Persia thus promises to bring about a critical situation in the Middle East, besides increasing the tension between Great Britain and Germany already existing in Europe. Germany's schemes for exploiting Persia are so menacing to British interests that they merit serious attention on the part of his Majesty's Government. Hitherto Great Britain and Russia have been the only Powers with extensive influence at Teheran. North Persia has been recognised as the Russian sphere of influence, and South Persia as the British. The Anglo-Russian agreement, now practically concluded, provides for the removal of future causes of rivalry in Persia. IN THE BRITISH SPHERE. This arrangement between Great Britain and Russia is extremely distasteful to Germeny, who desires to further her own ends in Persia. It is significant, however, that the commercial development now beginning is to be confined to South Persia, and carefully excluded from North Persia. In plain words, this means that the German Government is willing to pationise an invasion by German merchants of the British sphere of influence while carefully avoiding any action that could give offence to Russia. German protestations of friendship for England cannot conceal the fact that the scheme now begun in Persia with the consent and knowledge of the German Government is an effort to gain a footing in a cuntry adjacent to Britain's Indian Empire. An eminent authority on the Middle Eastern question has put it on record that the presence of any military Power in South Persia would be a. potential menace to India. Viewed in this light, the German commercial invasion appears still more menacing. The German Orient Bank was founded more than a year ago to promote profitable enterprises in Eastern countries. Its own capital amounts to £800,000, and its founders and backers are three of the most powerful institutions in Germany — the Dresdner Bank, the Na tional Bank of Germany, and the Schaffhausen Banking Association. One of its directors, Herr Gutmann, punior, is now at Teheran to begin practical business operations in Persia. The plan of campaign has been carefully worked out, and begins with the establishment of a German bank at Teheran to compete with the British and Russian bonks already there. The main object of this bank will be to secure concessions. COMMERCIAL CENTRE. The German Orient Bank will also try to .establish a gre-it commercial centre at the most favourable port on the Persian Gulf, obtaining a concession of territory as the site of the necessary buildings. This would be the headquarters of a new German line "of coasting steamships to distribute to all the Persian ports the Ge.man experts brought to the chosen commercial centre by tho Hamburg-American and other Gerir an linjs. The steamships of the HamburgAmerica Company now plying in the Persian Gulf undercut their British competitors by charging 8s a ton of freight as compared with 12s a ton rate of the British ships, and it is expected that a continuation of this policy will drive the British flag out of tho Gulf. i An audacious scheme of railway construction, seriously encroaching on British rights, completes the project of the German Orient Bank. It is stated that one of these projected German railways, running from Tehoran to Bagdad, would earn profits simply by conveying the corpses of pious Persians to two holy places southward of Bagdad, where the Persian Moslems desire to be buried. Another projected railway, running from Bagdad eastward and then southward to the new German commercial centre on the Persian Gulf, would provide the urgently needed terminus for the Bagdad Railway. The German Government recently appointed a new Minister at Teheran, Herr Stemrich, an expert in Oriental affairs, to promote German j commercial interests in Persia. One of Herr Stemrich's first acts was to recommend an immediate extension of German enterprise.

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