The British Association on Saturday discussed the project of building
a railway from Alexandretta to the Persian Gulf by a Government guarantee. The cost is to be ten millions, and the idea is that Turkey should build it, and England and India .guarantee the interest. General Strachey, Sir H. Rawlinson, and Mr. Grant Duff all condemned this plan, which would tax India and England to secure a few days' improvement in the speed of ,communication. All the speakers, even the advocates of the plan, admitted that it could not be carried out by private means, and most of them believed that it would never pay. The political 'difficulty strikes us as being even greater than the financial one. .Supposing the railway to be a failure, England and India would be taxed to pay the shareholders ; and supposing it to succeed, the Sultan would have his hand upon the throats of the two countries. That a fortiori is a final objection to the Russian plan of building the railway up the valley of the Oxus, a plan strongly advocated (by a Russian Count Bykovski, who said he had ridden over the -entire route. We might as well tunnel the Channel and give France the custody of the Tunnel.
Previous page
