INDO-EUROPEAN RAILWAY LONDON, August 29.

Otago Witness, Issue 2529, 3 September 1902, Page 15

INDO-EUROPEAN RAILWAY LONDON, August 29.

I Loi-d George Hamilton, has sanctioned the construction of the Quetta-Nushki , railway, the first section of the Indo- ( European line, via Baghdad ami Constantinople.

I Presumably the project is a revival of tiie Euphrates Valley railway and extensions. Some Russian proposals made in 1899 having been rejected, an English syndicate of considerable financial influence came forward with a scheme to run a line over well-known ground. Beginning at Konieh (the terminus of the Anatolian railway system) and running through Adana to Aleppo, : with a branch to Alexandrctta, on the Mediterranean, the railway would pursue the j valley to Hit, cross the Euphrates to Bagdad, and thence through Bussora to a point on the Persian Gulf, near Koweit. This project would shorten the journey to India by five or six days, supposing that fast steamers were put on the route from /the Persian Gulf to Karachi or Bombay. Suddenly a strong opposition was forthcoming from the Germans, who control the Anatolian system, including the line to Konieh, and who set up a moral claim for preference in the sh&pe of extensions, although they had not fulfilled their undertakings. It was reported from Constantinople in 1890 that the survey commission had ropdrfed to the German Company that the line could bi* made, but there were extraordinary difficulties in the way.