RAILWAY PROJECT

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 110, 3 February 1931, Page 9

RAILWAY PROJECT

Great International Link

PARIS-EAST AFRICA French Proposal Outlined INVITATION TO POWERS By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright« (“Times’* Cables) (Rec. February 2, 11.30 p.m.) London, February 2. “The Times” Paris correspondent says that a great new international railway, linking Britsh East Africa and Paris, via a tunnel under the Straits of Gibraltar is envisaged by a French Committee, which has invited Britain, Belgium, and Italy to participate in preliminary discussions. The French desire to extend the proposed trans-Saharan railway from Oran to the river Niger, then link the existing Dahomey railway to it, after which the British will be invited to run a branch along the lower Niger Into Nigeria, joining the British system, and enabling the French to continue the route through their equatorial possessions where at present there is no railway. This line would join the Belgian Congo, where the Belgians will be invited to build a line, eventually enabling the junction of Kenya, Tanganyika, and Rhodesia, which would be brought three weeks hearer London than- at present. Italy Is Invited to the discussions because the Italians are anxious to build their own trans-Saharan railway 800 miles to the eastward of France’s from Tripoli to Lake Chad. <