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-operation, therefore, failed, as French and Russian had failed.
The Germans, however, persevered with their enterprise, now a purely
German one, and ultimately with success. Their differences with Russia
were arranged by an agreement about the Turko-Persian railways signed in
1911. An agreement with France, with regard to the railways of Asiatic
Turkey, was signed in February 1914, and one with England (securing our
interests on the Persian Gulf) in June of the same year. Thus just before
the war broke out this thorny question had, in fact, been settled to the
satisfaction of all the Powers concerned. And on this two comments may be
made. First, that the long friction, the press campaign, the rivalry of
economic and political interests, had contributed largely to the European
tension. Secondly, that in spite of that, the question did get settled,
and by diplomatic means. On this subject, at any rate, war was not
"inevitable." Further, it seems clear that the British Government,
so far from "hemming-in" Germany in this matter, were ready from the
first to accept, if not to welcome, her enterprise, subject to their
quite legitimate and necessary preoccupation with their position on
the Persian Gulf. It was the British Press and what lay behind it that