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On Monday there was an important debate in the Lords

on the proposed trans-Persian railway. Lord Curzon vehemently attacked the scheme as a grave military danger to India. It meant a fundamental departure from the lines on which India bad been defended for 100 years. The western frontiers of India were the most vulnerable, and the true policy was to keep them closed, not to throw them open. The railway would destroy the value of Afghanistan as a buffer State. The proposal came at the very moment when our command of the Mediterranean was trembling in the balance. He begged the Government to think a hundred times before acting, to limit their "ambitions," and not to commit themselves to new and incalculable responsibilities. He had heard no military opinion favourable to the scheme.

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