THE BAGDAD RAILWAY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIX, Issue 13108, 23 April 1903, Page 5

THE BAGDAD RAILWAY.

ENGLISH NEWSPAPER OPINION., United Press Association—By Elcotrio Telegraph— Copyright. LONDON, April 21. The newspapers declare that the Bagdad railway is only possible if Britain consents to a large increase in Turkish Customs and grants the railway the postal subsidy of £245,000, now paid to British mail ships; and insist upon the Government completely protecting British political and commercial

interests. Mr Balfour stated thai no change had taken placer in the Bagdad question.

FURTHER COMMENTS BY THE " TIMES." (Received-April 23, I a.m.) LONDON, April 22.

The " Times " says that it is almost inconceivable how Great Britain should have entertained the Bagdad scheme. There is no single gain in return for sinking British capital, besides gratuitously irritating Russia, and it is hard to believe that,any British statesman mastering the papers could for ai moment hesitate in his action towards the project. The concession was signed on March 5, and the company's statutes prove that the promoters rely not on earnings, but on a kilometric guarantee at the cost

of an increased duty on British seaborne trade. ' The Anatolian railway owning the concession invites indispensable foreign capital, but ensures the real control remaining in German hands, obtains an extension of its own concession and security of control for nearly a century of the Constantinople end of the Bagdad railway, besides prospective contracts and privileges secured to the detriment of Britain, the utilisation of steamers on the Shattelarab, Euphrates and Tigris, and the Tight to establish ports at Bagdad, Basra and the Zubeir branch terminus, which Britain is invited to assist in constructing, and Koweyt, where Britain does not admit that such rights aro at the Sultan's disposal: The completion of the Konia-Bagdad railway must precede the working of the Basra-Bagdad section. The prohibition prevents the natural development of British trade from the Persian Gulf inland.