File 357/1919 Pt 2 ‘RAILWAYS IN PERSIA’ [‎430r] (864/1150)

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capable oi movements m bulk, if modern methods of agriculture were introduced, a
larger area would be brought under cultivation and an exportable surplus of food
stuffs ought to be available annually for sale m the world market, .and especially in
India. r J
] Many other examples could easily be found, and it is unnecessary to dwell on the
stimulus, both material and moral, which would be given to the life of the country
by the introduction of railways It may safely be assumed that they would be a
powerful factor in increasing the purchasing power of the country and its value as
a market for British goods In this connection it is interesting to note that in the
four years since the row miles of railway in Persian territory between Mirmwa and
Duzdab have been opened to traffic the imports passing annually through Duzdab have
doubled, whereas the exports have actually quintupled. Railways, while stabilising
the economic situation, could also tend automatically to stabilise the political
situation, so long as the railway system was wisely planned and executed.
^ This condition is an important one, however, and necessitates an examination
of the question of alignment. To take the problem as a fresh one, and detached from
the questions involved in existing options or concessions, it seems to me evident that
the general axis of the future Persian railway system ought to be west-east, and not
north-south, and that both for economic and strategic reasons. Broadly speaking,
the Persian trunk line ought to be regarded as a sector of a future trans-continental
South Asiatic railway linking up India with the Eastern Mediterranean, perhaps at
Haifa, and maybe with an alternative route diverging from Bagdad through Con
stantinople to Western Europe. So far as I am able to perceive, this conception is
the most advantageous one in the interest of Great Britain and Persia alike.
Assuming that the line starts from and connects with the Irak railway system on
the Irak-Persian frontier, its proper alignment should be Khanikin-Kermanshah-
Hamadan-Sultanabad-Ispahan-Yezd-Kerman-Duzdab, where it would connect
with the existing Indian system. The Persians would doubtless want the line pro
longed from Hamadan through Noberan to Tehran, and there would be no objection
to this as long as it did not divert the main axis of the future trunk line, to which it
would stand in the position of a branch line to the capital. It would be useful also
to connect the main line with the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. by lines within Persian territory,
e.g., via the Diz Valley with Mohammerah, from Ispahan via Shiraz with Bushire,
and from Kerman to Bunder Abbas.
m The north-south axis is objectionable because at one end it leads to nowhere
except Russia. It has the fallacious appearance of being a sea-to-sea line; fallacious
because the Caspian is a Russian lake and is both physically and politically
inaccessible to the commerce of all nations. The danger to Persia threatens from the
north. A north-south alignment would therefore be a line of dangerous penetration
from the Persian point of view, and a line of dangerous approach, necessitating
counter-measures, or some sort of political control over the southern sector, from the
Indian point of view. It is hardly too much to say that the construction of a north-
south line would make the loss of Persia's independence a mathematical certainty.
The eventuality is therefore one to be avoided to the utmost of our ability.
On the other hand, an east-west trunk line not only provides a harrier to an
advance from the north, but also offers a system of lateral communications which
would render any such advance appreciably more hazardous to undertake and
infinitely more easy to repel. The considerable distance which separates it from
Persia’s northern frontier would constitute another factor of security.
I am mvself strongly in favour of the trunk line being a standard railway; if
the suitability of roadrails for this country be demonstrated, this system could con
veniently be used for the purpose of branch and feeder lines for the time being, at
all events. If, however, the Persians find that they cannot suppoit the nnancial
burden of a standard railway for the moment, and desire to have a loadrails track
built from the western frontier to begin with, I do not think, we should oppose this
scheme, provided the interests of the Persian Railway Syndicate were guaranteed.
This could best be done by their acting as the Persian Government s agents for
building the roadrails track as a forerunner of the standard railway, winch won
obviously require an altogteher different trace from the road followed by the road
rails. I am inclined to think, however, that it would be wisest to use the roadrails
system experimentally in the first place away from the mam western line—for
example, from Bushire to Shiraz, with an extension to Ispahan if the experiment
proved successful—and meanwhile to encourage the Persians to proceed witn the
construction of the standard line from the Irak frontier to Kermanshah at least, and
fi possible to Hamadan.

File 357/1919 Pt 2 ‘RAILWAYS IN PERSIA’ [‎430r] (864/1150)

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File 357/1919 Pt 2 ‘RAILWAYS IN PERSIA’ [‎430r] (864/1150)

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