“In the neighbourhood of many of the villages around the shores of Lake Van is a considerable quantity of Circassian walnut timber, some of the trunks being of enormous size, upon which are knotty growths that would make them of great value if they could be shipped to market. Some little business is done in this line with Marseilles, but in the most unsatisfactory and wasteful manner, so that the returns are small.
“Lake Van is an unusually beautiful body of water,” continued Mr. Masterson, “about sixty miles long and thirty miles wide. The water is impregnated with a potash of some kind and has a soft, soapy feeling. The natives use it for washing their clothing without soap. Around the lake is much tilled land of great richness, and many villages, in addition to the thriving city of Van, are located upon its shores. There are a number of sailing boats, but they are so unwieldly that they can only go before the wind and frequently are compelled to wait a week or ten days for favourable weather. A boat run by steam power would be a paying investment, and some years ago the local government ordered a forty horse-power motor-boat from the United States through an American missionary, but it was delayed in the custom-house of Trebizond for more than a year and a half, and only reached Van last fall.
“It is the mineral wealth of the country, however,” continued Mr. Masterson, “that is destined to make it prosperous. While I could not investigate for myself, I was told by thoroughly reliable persons of rich deposits of coal, iron, and copper, which have been worked more or less at long intervals for many centuries, but only for local supply. An Armenian bishop told me of a vein of coal eight feet in thickness, which juts out of a mountain; a German told me that he knew of a bed of iron ore of such richness and purity that the blacksmiths of the villages in that neighbourhood have been using it for years in their work without having it smelted. There are beds of coal of excellent quality near the city of Van and every indication of petroleum. During the insurrection two years ago the revolutionists secured all their bullets from some wonderfully rich lead deposits in the neighbourhood of Van. While I was at Bitlas the governor-general showed me some fine specimens that looked like American anthracite and he told me of a sulphur mine near that city. Two days out from Bitlas I came across immense deposits of marble jutting out of the mountain, not only white, but dark red, green, and black.
“There is an extensive deposit of copper half way between Diarbekir and Harpoot that is being worked to some extent in three places, one by private individuals and two by the government. A smelter near the mine is operated with wood fuel, which is a very scarce and expensive commodity in this country, although the western branch of the Tigris River, a mountain torrent with a tremendous fall, passes only a few feet from the smelter and might easily develop enough electrical energy for all that country.
“The copper ore is very rich. There is a spring of water at the outcropping which is so strongly impregnated that a French prospector offered the government $25,000 a year for the privilege of converting the solution into solid copper, but the offer was refused and the overflow of that spring is still carrying its load of mineral into the Tigris River.”
Russia has already acquired about one third of Armenia by conquest, and has been pushing its southern boundary line farther and farther into Turkey and Persia every time there is a war. And now Turkey has given the Russians the exclusive right to construct railway lines from the ports of Asia Minor and Armenia on the Black Sea. Several short lines will doubtless be built. They will belong to the Russian government, and the next time an excuse is offered for hostilities the cars will be loaded with Russian troops and arms and ammunition, brought across the Black Sea from Sebastopol on Russian ships. The Turks have thus furnished their most dangerous and aggressive enemy the facilities for an easy and irresistible invasion of their own territory. In addition to its military importance, the Russians have obtained a commercial advantage of the greatest value. The country along the southern coast of the Black Sea is very rich and produces abundant crops, but the people of the interior have no means except camel caravans of getting their produce to market. The Russians are to furnish them the necessary facilities and will have the benefit of the results.
Furthermore, the mountains which skirt the coast are rich in minerals, but have never been developed or even explored, because the sultan of Turkey has always forbidden it. A French company has a concession for working a coal mine near the city of Kastamuni (you can find it on the map about thirty miles inland from the coast of the Black Sea), but they have no harbour and no railway and it costs as much to get the coal over that thirty miles to the coast as it does to bring it from England. If a railway could be built and a harbour provided, the mines would be a very profitable source of revenue. The coal is of excellent quality. It is easily worked and the nearest competition is Cardiff and Newcastle in England. The sultan has always opposed the development of these resources, but the new government is favourable. Russia and France are allies in all that concerns the East and it may be assumed that the Russians will not only encourage but assist the French concessionaires for this coal industry.
Although the Chester concession had been approved and signed by every authority of the executive branch of the government whose signature was necessary, and had been formally approved by a unanimous vote of the council of state, the grand vizier refused to submit it to the Chamber of Deputies whose ratification was necessary to make it complete. When pressed to do so by the American ambassador, he explained that it would first be necessary to make some modifications in the treaty of amity and commerce which has been standing for nearly a hundred years, in order that the officials and employés of the proposed railroad, and the adventurers it would attract to the country, might be placed under the jurisdiction of the Turkish courts. At present, as in all semi-civilized countries, citizens of the United States residing in Turkey are tried before the American consul on the theory that they cannot secure justice in the local courts. This is called the doctrine of extra-territoriality, and is also adhered to by European Powers. While there has been considerable improvement in the judiciary of Turkey, the government is not yet sufficiently secure and the laws have not yet been sufficiently modernized to justify the United States or the European governments in submitting the personal and property rights of their subjects in Turkey to such jurisdiction, and neither the merchants nor the missionaries now in the Ottoman Empire would consider themselves safe under such an arrangement.
The grand vizier also raised the objection suggested by the German ambassador, that the Chester concession interfered with the mining rights of a certain German subject, and with an agreement with the late sultan that no mining concessions would be granted in Turkey without the consent of the German government. But the real reason for the refusal to submit the concession for the ratification of the Chamber of Deputies appeared in January, 1911, when a secret arrangement entered into between Russia and Germany as to the future policy to be pursued by those two governments in Persia and Turkey became known. This agreement practically apportions the Turkish provinces in Asia and the northern provinces of Persia between those two governments, so far as transportation facilities are concerned, without even consulting the governments of Turkey or Persia. It is as follows:
“Article I.—The Imperial Russian government declares its willingness not to oppose the realization of the Bagdad Railway project, and agrees not to oppose any obstacle to the participation of foreign capitalists in this enterprise, it being understood that no sacrifice of a monetary or economic nature will be asked from Russia.