Between 1899 and 1902 the proposed Bagdad Railway was discussed occasionally by French publicists, but it could not have been considered a matter of widespread popular interest. In the spring of the latter year, however, immediately after the award of the first Bagdad concession by the Sultan, a bitter protest was voiced in the Chamber of Deputies against the policy of the French Government. M. Firmin Fauré, a deputy from Paris, introduced a resolution that "the issue of debentures, stocks, or bonds designed to permit the construction of the Bagdad Railway shall not be authorized in French territory except by vote of the Chamber of Deputies." In a few words M. Fauré denounced the Bagdad Railway plan as a menace to French prestige in the Near East and as a threat against Russian security in the Caucasus. He believed, furthermore, that Bagdad Railway bonds would be an unsafe investment: "It is a Panama that is being prepared down there. Do you choose, perchance, my dear colleagues, to allow French capital to be risked in this scheme without pronouncing it foolhardy? Do you choose to allow the great banks and the great investment syndicates to realize considerable profits at the expense of the small subscribers? If that is how you attend to the defence of French capital, well and good, but you will permit me to disagree with you." He warned the members of the Chamber that they would not dare to stand for reëlection if they thus allowed the interests of their constituents to be prejudiced.[14]
M. Delcassé, Minister of Foreign Affairs, objected to the resolution. He denied that French diplomacy had assisted the German bankers in securing the Bagdad Railway concession.[15] But the concession was a fait accompli, and it also was a fact that French financiers felt they could not afford to refuse the offer of participation with the German concessionaires. "I venture to ask how it
