The Times publishes a remarkable letter to the Sultan from
the Turkish Consul-General at Brussels. It appears that the Court of Constantinople has been fascinated by a project for constructing a railway from Damascus to Mecca, and in order to push on the works which are to bind Arabia to the Sultanet, is squeezing all officials. The Diplomatic Service, for example, has not been paid for six months. The Consul-General therefore tells his Majesty that his magnificent attempt to run a railway through un- peopled deserts will either fail or will never pay, besides being an object of permanent hostility to the Bedouins ; that the Turkish workshops on which he relies produce no rails ; that Syria does not contain the trees needed for sleepers ; that even the manufacture of stuffs has died away, "so that, but for Europe, we should be obliged to drape ourselves in the garments of Paradise." The project "will expose the Khalifat to the discredit of all Islam." Asiatic Monarchs are often strangely tolerant of free speech from their employes, but then they must have asked for it, and the Consul-General, knowing his master, will not, after this denunciation of his pet project, return to Constantinople. The letter, however, is curious evidence that some Turks can reason, and that the adoption of a project by the Sultan is not in their eyes final evidence of its wisdom.
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