RUSSIA'S ASIATIC KAILWAY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 29, 3 February 1900, Page 5 (Supplement)

RUSSIA'S ASIATIC KAILWAY.

The recent transport of Russian troops from Tiflis, in Trans-Caucasia, to Kushk, on the Afghan frontier, as an alleged "experiment," gives special interest to Mr B. E. C. Long's synopsis and review in the "Fortnightly" of. the recent Russian publication, "The shortest railway route from Central Europe to Central Asia." Mr Long holds that Russia cannot rest satisfied with her great Siberian and Trans-Caspian railway systems; and that what she needs to further her aims and policy, commercial and political, in Central Asia, is a direct railway, starting from Alexandrof Gill, connected with Moscow by the <;:c----ifrting trunk line, due south-east through Turkestan, skirting the north-east of the Caspian, and the south-west of the Aral Sea, to Tchargin, on the Bokhara frontier, connecting there at once with the Merv to Kushk and Bokhara to Samarcand lines. This line would be 1710 versts ill length, is estimated to cost about 1)0,000,000 roubles, and would, on present conditions, entail an annual loss of about £500,000 sterling on the Russian revenue. The questijn to which Mr Long devotes his attention chiefly is whether it will pay Russia to incur this loss. It is true that Russia, by the Tiflis to Baku line, and iiie. Trans-Caspian railway from Kiasnovodsk, can now send troops rapidly to the Afghan frontier; but there is the break caused by shipment across the Caspian Sea, between Baku and Krasnovodsk, involving loss of time and transport difficiilties of various kinds, whereas the proposed railway would link up all the Russo-Asiatic systems, and give direct rail by the shortest route from Moscow to Merv, a distance of 3000 versts, which could be travelled in 100 hours.. As to why Russia should undertake this project, Mr Long has no doubt Russia is afraid that England will anticipate her by extending the Indian railway through Beluchistan to the Persian Gulf, with the ultimate aim of joining the German line in Asia Minor, completing the Indo-European system, and thus cutting Russia 'off for ever from the Indian Ocean. To avert this disaster, Russia sees two alternatives —one is the direct Central-Asiatic line; the other, the acquisition of a Persian port, to be connected by rail with the Caspian Sea. The latter scheme is, for the present, open to very serious drawbacks; while the former would open up Northern Persia, Afghanistan, Fergana, and the Sir Daria to the manufactures of Central Russia, bring about the development of a vast territory now practically wasted, but really'valuable, and would bring the Russian armies within striking distance of the Persian. Afghan, and Chinese frontiers in a few days after leaving Moscow. The line would, in the event of Russian difficulties with England, constitute a grave menace to the security of Tndia; and this is urged by its ndvocates as one of the strongest reasons for its construction.