[19] The principal bank in Turkey before the War was the Imperial Ottoman Bank. This institution was owned by French and British capitalists, the French interest being predominant and in control. It was a quasi-public bank, founded in 1863, and enjoying since then a monopoly of bank-note issues. Its central office was at Constantinople, but it maintained a branch in practically every important city of Asiatic Turkey, including Smyrna, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Aleppo, Alexandretta, Beirut, Damascus, Basra, Bagdad, and Mosul. The capital stock of the Imperial Ottoman Bank was £10,000,000 sterling. A British bank of some importance was The Eastern Bank, Ltd., of which the Right Honorable Lord Balfour of Burleigh was chairman—the same Lord Balfour who was Secretary for Scotland in the ministry of his namesake, Arthur J. Balfour, in 1903, when the British Government quashed the participation of English capitalists in the Bagdad Railway. The head office of the Eastern Bank was in London, and it maintained branches in Basra and Bagdad, although its principal sphere of activity was India. Sir Ernest Cassell’s National Bank of Turkey was not established until 1909. _Cf._ Caillard, _loc. cit._, p. 439; weekly advertisements of these banks in _The Near East; Parliamentary Debates_, Index for 1903, p. v; _Turkey in Europe_, p. 36. [20] D. S. Jordan, “The Interlocking Directorates of War,” in _The World’s Work_, July, 1913, p. 278; H. Hauser, _Les Méthodes Allemandes d’Expansion Économique_, seventh edition (Paris, 1917), _passim_; Riesser, _op. cit._, pp. 366–367. [21] Riesser, _op. cit._, pp. 373–375, 432, 474, 745–746. [22] _Verhandlungen des Reichstages, Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 1 Session_, Volume 231 (1908), p. 4253c. The speech of the Secretary was followed by “Bravos” from the National Liberals. [23] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords_, fourth series, Volume 121 (1903), p. 1340. [24] _Diplomatic and Consular Reports_, No. 3140 (1903), p. 40. [25] _Supra_, pp. 98–99, _Report of the Deutsche Bank_, 1909, p. 12; _Stenographische Berichte, XII. Legislaturperiode, 2 Session_, Volume 260 (1910), p. 2181d, statement by Baron von Schoen. [26] Fraser, _op. cit._, pp. 16–17, 18–20. _Cf._, also, _Report of the Bagdad Railway Company_, 1911, p. 4. [27] _Staatsbürger Zeitung_ (Berlin), March 3, 1912.