If German business men were likely to be interested in the economic development of Asia Minor, what was the nature of this interest? BROADER BUSINESS INTERESTS DEVELOP Speaking to the Reichstag in March, 1908, Baron von Schoen, Foreign Secretary of the Empire, explained a few of the opportunities which the Bagdad Railway opened to German industry and commerce. “The advantages,” he said, “which accrue to Germany from this great enterprise, conceived on a grand scale, are obvious. In the first place, there arises the prospect of considerable participation of German industry in the furnishing of rails, rolling stock, and other railway materials. Furthermore, German engineers, German construction workers, and German contractors are very likely to find remunerative occupation in the construction of the railway. Finally, it is certain that with the rising civilization and the higher standard of living of the inhabitants of the country, a new market will be made available. That this territory will be opened up not merely for us, but also for other nations, we can allow without envy.... What we have in view is the development of regions that seem to be worth developing; we wish to coöperate in awakening from a sleep of a thousand years an ancient flourishing civilized region, thereby creating a new market for ourselves and others.”[22] This same idea had been advanced by others on other occasions. The _Alldeutsche Blätter_ of December 17, 1899, had prophesied that the construction of the railway by a German-controlled syndicate would result in the purchase of some eighty million dollars’ worth of German products and that, once completed, the railway would open to German business an enormous and wealthy market. Lord Ellenborough, speaking in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, on May 5, 1903, expressed the opinion that “the capital disbursed in constructing the railway would be largely spent on German steel industries, and on salaries to German engineers and German surveyors, so that even if the railway, as a railway, were a failure, it would not be a total loss to Germany.”[23] The British Consul General at Constantinople pointed out, in 1903, that, in addition to all of the aforementioned advantages, there would be innumerable special opportunities for the remunerative investment of German capital in the regions traversed by the railway.[24]