Page 101 - Neglected Arabia (1906-1910)

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of the Turk, but which under German influence could hardly fail to
be startlingly rapid. The chief promoter of the Anatolian railway
scheme put forward several years ago this argument in its support:
“What Turkey has already sold to the world in breadstuffs is as noth­ ;
ing compared with what she can produce when her enormous agri­
cultural resources have been developed. Of all agricultural States, I
Turkey is perhaps the only one which may be able some d&y to com­
pete successfully with America in England and on the Continent
of Europe in this respect.
Especially is this the case in the production of cotton, and Ger­
many's absolute dependence upon America and Russia for petroleum
would be materially lessened if the oil and bitumen fields of Mesopota­
mia were rationally exploited/' It may be assumed, as another author­
ity has put the case, that these lands of Asia Minor, the cradle of
mankind, of civilization, of faiths and empires, will not always be left
desolate. Larger than France, Germany and Austria-Hungary to­
gether, they have a population of less than twenty millions. They
will assuredly be the heritage of the Teuton or the Slav. But there
is this difference,- that while the Russian Empire within itself has col­
i
onizing space for innumerable millions, the German sees no other place
f upon the globe, where his race can shape out a true colonial future
upon a race basis. The fact that the Turks are said to have chosen
Bagdad to be the capital of what will remain of their dominions when
their ultimately inevitable ejection from Europe takes place is not
l likely to be much of a factor in the discussions of the great powers re­
lating to the future of Asia Minor. But Turkey has by no means
i:
ceased to be a negligible quantity in the arrangement of the territorial
ambitions of the great Eastern powers, and it will be perceived that
no question which King Edward and the Emperor William were likely
\ I
to discuss in the course of their interview at Friedrichshof bristled
with greater difficulties than that which touches the construction of
the German railway across Asia Minor and the fixing of a terminus
for it on the Persian Gulf.

HAPPENINGS AT NACHL.

. REV. JAMES CANTINE.
It is known to readers of our paper that from time to time our
journeys inland frora Muscat have taken us to Nachl, and that this
town has been chosen for our first outstation in the Oman field. At