مراسلات وأوراق عن بلاد فارس [ظ‎‎٢‎٠] (١٠٧/٤١)

2
missed wUh the remark that its condition is so
rates are somewhat less than those prevad.ng on the Red bea and lu. a ,
Gidf lines, its share of the overland traffic is only a little more than one per
cent., the rest being divided between the two administrations just mentioned.
The Amoor route I have already described as circuitous and expensive.
For all practical purposes we may then assume that there are only two
tjood lines of communication between India and Luiope, and I won t ask
* to bear in mind, that not only have these routes been subjected tosenous
interruption, but they have, even within the last few years, been inter-
rupU’d simultaneously.
Now in order to provide an alternative route that shall be direct, efficient
and inexpensive, the following lines of communication suggest themselves
t o me : —
(]) A deep sea cable subsidized by the English Government from \ an-
couver to, say, Shanghai, or better still, to Hongkong.
(2) An overland line of telegraph through Southern Afghanistan to
join the Indian system, terminating at Chaman and the Russian
system, which has been extended to near Penjdeh.
(3) The construction of a first class line of telegraph from Fao to
Constantinople, the line from the former place to Kurrachee being
m ultiplied.
(4) Another route suggested by Sir Henry Mance, late Electrician of
the Indo-European Telegraph Department, is to lay some 1,700 miles
of cable from Loanda, a station of the West African Cable Com
pany, to Port Nolloth in the Cape Colony, through which a land
line would connect with the existing cable to Zanzibar and Aden.
This route, like ihe Amoor, would be circuitous and costly.
Route No. 1 would be a very heavy undertaking, and I much doubt if
the English Government, bearing in mind their experience of the first Red
Sea Cable, would be prepared to subsidize such a line, and without a subsidy
I doubt whether any private company would at present undertake the work-
As regards route No. 3—such a line as that recommended would have
to be not only constructed but maintained by Europeans.
1 here are no physical difficulties, and the route would be a most valu
able alternative one, as well as a route that would have the very great advan
tage of not passing through Russian territory.
If I lemembei rightly England has, under the treaty of Berlin or under
a convention with Turkey which was the outcome of that treaty, very great
power in the way of internal reforms in Armenia and Asiatic Turkey, and I
believe that with our representatives at the more important towns through
which the line would pass and the subordinate staff and workmen recruited
locally, the line would easily be maintained in a state of high efficiency.