We briefly sketched out on the arrival of the telegram noticing the occupation of Cyprus, the peculiar advantage of that island as commanding both possible ways to India; namely, the Suez Canal and the long-talked of Euphrates Valley Railway. The sketch of the latter given at the United Service Institution by Sir Frederick Goldsmid, Beems to point to a possible recon sideration of the subject. The occupation of Cyprus seems to have removed the main argument against the construction of the line, that it might be made a source of weakness; and now the main enquiry will be whether the construction of the line will repay its cost by the direct profits to be derived from traffic, or the indirect benefit of better and readier communication between England and her great dependency of India. With regard to the possibility of the railway being directly Profitable from the traffic along it, authorities seem to be ab one. There are but few engineering difficulties to be overcome, and in these days of cheap freights the cost of materials delivered would not much exceed their prices in England. Still, even at a low calculation, the line could scaresly be made for a Jess sum than ten millions sterling, so that to pay a modest dividend of 39%, an annual profit of £300,000, or, say, £6,000 per week, would be needed. As coals would be naturally dear in Mesopotamia, and no other fuel apparently available, the working expenses to earn this amount of profit could scarcely be placed at less than £9,000 or £10,000, so that a trafic producing some £16,000 per week, or nearly £20 per mile, would be needed to pay expenses, including of course the lowest rate of interest possi ble. Now a largo portion of the country to be traversed consists of uninhabited deserts, and though formerly large cities, euch as Palmyra, existed along the road, man has so devastated the country that the climate has become unsuited for the cultivation of the soil, Still it is possible that portions of the better watered districts of Mesopotamia may again become corn producing, but beyond this there seems little hope for local traffic along the line; while so long as the Suez Canal is in a position to permit large ocean steamers to pass, the stream of commerce will naturally tend to the easier and less expensive route, There are, however, other conditions under which the making of the proposed line may be feasible and profitable, To the Government as well as the commerce of India rapid communication is becoming a matter of urgent necessity. Even without the extension of a railway through Boloochistav, there is little doubt that ordinary passengers could travel from Cypras to India in less than a week, so-that a saving of some ten days would be readily effected in the passage from England. The route'to China would be even more shortened, as mails and passengers could cross the peninsula from Kurraches to Madras. Commercially, the opening of the line would be of great advantage to the East, while there would be a considerable decrease possible in the mail subsidy, as steamers from Brindisi to Tripoli, and from Kawait to Kurrachel, would alone be needed on the other side of India. A line of steamers from Madras to Singapore would at the latter point send off branches to Australia and Batavia on the one side, and to China and Japan on the other, so that not India alone bat China and the Austral-
Asian colonies would all be benefitted.
The line would cost, on the data we have assumed above, £750,000 per annum; but on the credit side we have to allow the receipts from traffic, probably £250,000, and a reduction in the mail service of possibly £150,000 more, ea that the actual cost would be some £350,000 per annum. This on the whole does not seem to be a large sum to be paid for the increased facilities of communication, Nationally, however, the additional security afforded to our Indian Empire from the fear of any invasion from with. out, would be the greatest advantage to be derived from the line, We have never feared an attack on India by Russia, but it was none the less the fact that the continual suggestions of the possibility of such an attack skile fally thrown out by Russian agente, had become a source, not of danger but of petty annoyance, As the construction of the railway would leave Russia more penetrable to English attack than any part of the British dominions would be to Russian advances, this is a view: of the question which cannot be omitted from any calculation of the feasibility of the line. It may be, as Lord Beaconsfield said, that Asia is large enough for both Great Britain and Russia, and doubtless it would be so were the latter an ordinary power bent on advancing civilisation; but as there are some men to whom a whole street scarcely affords standing room, so there are States which need to be placed under some sort of restraint to prevent their eccentricities booming a nuisance to their neighbours, and if the construction of the line would act in a measure as a straight waistcoat for our northern neighbour the advantage would be one for the world at large.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.