RUSSIAN TRADE IN ASIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 100, 28 April 1888, Page 4

RUSSIAN TRADE IN ASIA.

If the confident predictions of the Ru3sian press are to be believed, the month of April will be an epoch of great importance in the annals

of Central Asia, as by this time the Trans-Caspian railway will be completed to Samarcandj and the trade of the whole of Central Asia will be in the hands of the subjects of the white Czar. Ever since the dispute that preceded the delimitation of the Afghan frontier the Russians have pushed on this line with ■ almost feverish impatience, at times the work being proceeded with by electric light. About January last the first train of cars crossed the new bridge over the river Oxus, and at that date the whole of the line had been graded from the river to Samarcand. Many engineers said a railroad could not be maintained through the shifting sands of the Kara - Kum desert. But General Annenkoff, by covering parts of his,road with clay, by placing in his embankments layers of the branches of, a desert shrub, and by cultivating along parts of the route many thousands of desert plants whose roots retain the sand, has thus far maintained his road - bed without deterioration. The problem of a water supply was solved by bringing water in pipes from mountains that skirt two hundred miles of the route; also by canals from the Murghab, while artesian wells are the source of supply between Merv and the Oxus.

There is no doubt that the strategic significance of the line was first thought of, but since it has been pushed on beyond Merv it has become more and more a commercial railway, an important means of communication between European Eussia and Central Asia, and especially between the Turkestan district ai;d Bokhara. Tashkend, with its 100,000 inhabitants and garrison of 10,000 men, besides.a large number of civil officials, was found to be a capital market, and the large Russian houses hastened to establish offices there. Russia's export to Turkestan ha 3 already risen to 12,000,000 roubles, while the importation reaches 10,000,000. At Bokhara the same thing will happen. There is already a market there for Russian gold and silver wares, porcelain, the national teasamowar, &c. The old caravan road still competes with the new railway, but as soon as the tariff of the latter is lowered, the rivalry will cease. England, whose wares are visibly pushed out of the market, will suffer most from this new commercial route.

The closing by Russia of the hitherto free harbour*of Batoum has stopped the avenue for foreign trade to the Trans-Caspian Provinces, and despite the protection to British trade given by the Anglo-Persian treaty of 1841, it seems probable that ere long Russia will be able to monopolise the bulk of the commerce of Persia. At present the imports of that country, valued at nearly annually, are with British India, by way of the Persian Gulf, and country British India - sends the of the Shah worth of exports annually. The completion of the railway to Samarcand is therefore certain to have a prejudicial effect on British commerce in the East.