As events turned out, the failure of the Balfour Government to effect the internationalization of the Bagdad Railway was a colossal diplomatic blunder. If the proposed agreement of 1903 had been consummated, the _entente_ of 1904 between France and England would have taken control of the enterprise out of the hands of the Germans, who would have possessed, with their Turkish collaborators, only fourteen of the thirty votes in the Board of Directors. Sir Henry Babington Smith assures the author that there was nothing in the arrangement suggested by the _Deutsche Bank_ which would have prevented eventual Franco-British domination of the line. Surely, as Bismarck is said to have remarked, every nation must pay sooner or later for the windows broken by its bellicose press! VESTED INTERESTS COME TO THE FORE In addition to the pressure which was brought to bear on the Balfour Cabinet by the newspapers, there were important vested business interests which quietly, but effectively, made themselves heard at Downing Street during the critical days of the Bagdad negotiations of 1903. It already has been noted that in 1888, as part of the plans of the Public Debt Administration for the improvement of transportation facilities in Turkey, the British-owned Smyrna-Aidin Railway Company was granted permission to construct several important branches to its main line. For a time this new concession thoroughly satisfied the owners and directors of the Company, and there was no objection on their part to the extension and development of the German-owned Anatolian system. By 1903, however, when the Bagdad concession was under discussion, the Smyrna-Aidin line demanded the protection of the British Government against the undue extension of German railways in the Near East. In particular, it objected to the agreement between the Anatolian Railway and the Smyrna-Cassaba Railway, by which the latter joined its tracks with the Anatolian system at Afiun Karahissar and accepted a schedule of tariffs satisfactory to both lines.[13] The Smyrna-Aidin Company feared that the Bagdad Railway would develop the ports of Haidar Pasha, Alexandretta, and Mersina at the expense of the prosperity of Smyrna, thereby decreasing the relative importance of the Smyrna-Aidin line and cutting down the volume of its traffic. Finally, it objected to the payment of a kilometric guarantee to the German concessionaires while there was no likelihood of its being similarly favored by the custodians of the public purse. The interests of the shareholders of the railway were well represented in the House of Commons by “that watchful dragon of imperial interests”, Mr. Gibson Bowles.