'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎633] (702/714)

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confess to having felt, without having ever succumbed to, the
fascination. Closer study, however, and, still more, a visit at
different times to both sides of the country concerned—viz. to Syria
and to Mesopotamia—have convinced me both that the project is
unsound, and that it does not, for the present at any rate, lie
within the domain of practical politics. Without recapitulating
the pros and cons of the question, I will briefly marshal the argu
ments that have led me to that conclusion.
The grounds upon which such a railway should be advocated,
and by which the policy of constructing it must, in the last resort,
Physical 1)0 determined ? are fourfold—physical, political, military,
and economic. I believe that in each of these respects
the scheme of a Euphrates Valley railway, if tried, will be found
wanting. The physical obstacles consist in the character of the
country and in the climate. Dismissing the preliminary difficulty
that would be encountered in piercing the Syrian coast range as
one that engineers might reasonably be expected to overcome,
there remains the fact that, upon the more northerly of the lines
suggested, there are no places of the faintest importance before
reaching Baghdad except Antioch and Aleppo, and that the railway,
for the most part, would pass over bare and uncultivated plains,
whilst upon the more southerly or Palmyrene route it would
traverse what cannot be otherwise described than as a waterless
desert. The temperature on these sandy wastes is excessively
torrid and trying during the summer months, and I decline to
believe that during half the year any general in the world would
consent to pack his soldiers into third-class carriages for con
veyance across these terrible thousand miles, at least if he anti
cipated using them in any other capacity than as hospital in
mates at the end. Still less would he do so if, as contemplated
by an extension of the scheme, to which I shall presently refer,
this section of a thousand miles were only the forerunner to another
and longer continuation, througli a tract of country even less
prepossessing.
I have been astonished in wading through the literature on the
subject to note the almost absolute unanimity with which the wishes
or attitude of Turkey in the matter have been ignored.
Political mi n . t -i -i mi • i
ihe country traversed is from end to end under iurkisn
dominion; not a rail could be laid, or a bridge constructed, or a
ticket taken, or a dividend paid—or, as is more likely, not paid
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