There is no subsidy or guarantee of interest or principal, and no financial obligation whatever on the part of the government, but the development company, which is organized under the laws of New Jersey, with the right to form subordinate companies, will have the exclusive right for ninety-nine years to exploit and work directly, or by leases to others, all mineral and petroleum deposits, all quarries, mineral water springs, known or unknown, within an area of twenty kilometres on both sides of the tracks for the entire distance, a total of about fifteen hundred miles through the heart of Turkey. It has the exclusive right to all water-power within twenty kilometres of the track on both sides for electricity or manufacturing purposes; it is authorized to furnish light and power to all towns and cities within a zone of one hundred kilometres on both sides of the track; it has the exclusive right to operate boats on Lake Van and build and operate smelters, furnaces, elevators, warehouses, wharves, machine-shops and a variety of other industries. One of the most important features of the concession is the right to establish stores to sell such merchandise as it may deem proper or useful to the public and to its own employes. The company is authorized to construct and operate telegraph lines for its own use, but it cannot do a commercial business, because that would interfere with the government telegraph, which is a part of its postal service.
The enterprise being of public utility, all property belonging to individuals can be appropriated whenever necessary for carrying out the provisions of the concession, and all concessions previously granted which may interfere with the conditions of the contract are to be terminated as speedily as possible. The government undertakes to indemnify the owners.
The resources of Turkey have never been developed.
Nothing has ever been done by the government and very little by individuals, because, whenever a Turk discovered anything of value or acquired any wealth, he was robbed, blackmailed, and persecuted, and the government confiscated whatever it could reach. Abdul Hamid had a personal title to much valuable property, such as mineral deposits, petroleum wells, stone quarries, forests, and placed others in the names of his confidential men. The new government has confiscated all of these properties and the titles are now in the state. All such property lying along the line of the proposed road becomes subject to the concession.
The Chester syndicate thus obtains the exclusive right to work certain coal deposits that have been operated more or less by the government. They are of unlimited extent, and the quality of the coal is said to be as fine as that of Cardiff. There is a deposit of copper at Arghana, which has been worked in a rude way for several thousand years and is believed to be one of the most valuable in the world. It belongs to the Turkish government and has been producing about $750,000 worth of ore a month for the benefit of the sovereign. Several syndicates have been organized from time to time to get hold of it, but the sultan would never let it go.
Other extensive copper deposits are known to exist, but they have never been developed or even explored. There is a very large oil territory in the neighbourhood of Mosul, in the valley of the Tigris, which has been known for centuries. So long ago as the reign of Alexander the Great the people used the seepage for lubricating purposes, for liniments, and for fuel. There is oil in other localities along the line, and no end of lead, zinc, and other minerals of greater or less value. The mountains through which the railway will pass have been the source of silver supply of the Armenians and the Kurds for twenty or thirty centuries, but the mines have never been worked by modern processes.
It is believed that the mineral deposits alone represent hundreds of millions of dollars in the territory covered by the concession, without regard to other interests of value. The development company, which will own the concession, proposes to divide and separate these interests among several subordinate companies — one to build and operate the railway, another to operate the coal mines, another to operate the copper mines, another to develop the oil deposits, and others to undertake the development of the various other interests. Numerous propositions have already been received from syndicates and individuals, who are aware of valuable mineral, timber, and other resources along the proposed line, and have been trying in vain to obtain concessions from the Turkish government to develop them.