Between 1893 and 1908, at least six private consortia and the municipality of Baghdad were denied permission to operate steamships on the Tigris and Euphrates on the grounds that a navigation concession had already been granted to the Privy Purse (hazine-i hassa). The Privy Purse justified its insistence on monopoly with reference to the emerging ideology of development (nafia), though its ideas about the role of steam technology in nafia stood in contrast to those of private investors and other Ottoman bureaucrats. Working from the hazine-i hassa’s planning memos and contracts, I show that the private treasury envisioned a primarily agrarian future for Iraq, with steamships serving agricultural aims. As such, it focused on envisioning future steamships rather than managing its existing fleet, while still acquiring dominance over land and transport in the region. However, private companies and officials contested this vision, emphasizing the materiality of existing steamships, their roles in trade, and the potential for commercial competition as a means of resisting British imperial encroachment. After the Committee of Union and Progress came to power in 1908, the Privy Purse was disestablished and its properties reverted to the Finance Ministry, opening a brief window during which steamship companies were encouraged to proliferate. Quickly, however, new comprehensive schemes were proposed, though with railways replacing steamships as the corollary to Iraq’s imagined riches. Engaging questions about the futurity of both infrastructure and capital, as well as those posed by the technology-in-use paradigm, this article suggests that the hazine-i hassa is a rich starting point for analysis because the scalar and ontological tensions it embodied highlight how different kinds of futures interact in development planning to affect the present.

在1893年至1908年之间，至少有六个私人财团和巴格达市被拒绝准许在底格里斯河和幼发拉底河上经营轮船，其理由是枢密院钱包（hazine-i hassa）已获得航行特许权。尽管有关蒸汽技术在纳菲亚中的作用的观点与私人投资者和其他奥斯曼官僚的观点相反，枢密院钱包仍坚持以新兴的发展意识形态（纳菲亚）为由坚持垄断。从hazine-i hassa工作在我的计划备忘录和合同中，我表明，私人财政部为伊拉克设想了一个主要的农业前途，而轮船则以农业为目的。因此，它专注于设想未来的轮船，而不是管理其现有船队，同时仍在该地区的土地和运输领域占据主导地位。但是，私营公司和官员对这一构想提出了质疑，强调了现有轮船的重要性，它们在贸易中的作用以及作为抵抗英帝国侵略手段的商业竞争潜力。工会与进步委员会于1908年上台后，枢密院钱包被撤销，其财产归财政部所有，这为鼓励轮船公司激增提供了一个简短的窗口。但是很快就提出了新的综合方案，尽管铁路取代轮船成为伊拉克想象中的财富的必然结果。关于基础设施和资本的未来性以及在用技术范式带来的问题，本文提出了以下问题：Hazine-i hassa是进行分析的丰富起点，因为它所体现的标量和本体论张力突显了不同种类的期货如何在发展规划中相互作用以影响当下。