[25] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords_, fourth series, Volume 121 (1903), pp. 1347–1348. Two observations should be made regarding this quotation. First, it is included in every book I have consulted on the Bagdad Railway, written since 1903, but in every instance the last sentence has been omitted—a sentence which considerably alters the spirit of the statement. Second, the German press, at the time, considered that the warning was directed, not at the Bagdad Railway, but at the rapid and alarming advance of Russia in Persia. _Cf._ an analysis of foreign press comments in an article by J. I. de La Tour, “Le chemin de fer de Bagdad et l’opinion anglaise,” in _Questions diplomatiques et coloniales_, Volume 15 (1903), pp. 609–614—an excellent digest. [26] _Cf._ a statement by Lord Cranborne, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in _Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons_, fourth series, Volume 101 (1902), p. 129. Although he was less than forty years of age at the time of his appointment as Governor-General of India (1898), the Right Honorable George Nathaniel Curzon, Baron Curzon of Kedleston, even at that early age, had had wide experience and training of the type so common among the masters of British imperial destiny. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and he traveled widely in the Near East. He served as a member of Parliament from 1886 until 1898. He was Under-Secretary of State for India, 1891–1892; Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1895–1898; Privy Councillor, 1895. [27] _Supra_, p. 34; _The Annual Register_, 1901, pp. 304–305; K. Helfferich, _Die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges_, p. 129. [28] Viscount Haldane, _Before the War_ (London, 1920), pp. 48–51; Viscount Morley, _Recollections_ (New York, 1917), p. 238.