way speed, save four days in the communication; and the adoption of the route by Brindisi, Scanderoon, Bagdad, and Bussorah, would save 2 days over present arrangements. The expenditure of a moderate sum might doubtless considerably accelerate the present mode of communication, but it is to be remembered that the existence of complete lines of telegraph renders a very rapid mail service of somewhat less importance than it was formerly.

*

We earnestly desire that it may be found practicable to carry out the project, which would be of considerable, but not paramount, importance to India. We have derived great advantages from the opening of the Suez Canal, which, unfortunately, is not as yet a pecuniary success. The large steamboat companies are not so prosperous as they were, and we doubt how far it would be prudent to pledge ourselves beforehand to pay any certain sum for the carriage of mails on a railway which would take many years to construct, while possibly a smaller sum would gain an equal advantage if spent in the improvement or consolidation of the modes of conveyance which exist, and have been proved to answer their purpose. Upon the whole, we desire to offer such encouragement as may be possible to the project for the construction of a railway from either the Bosphorus or the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, but we are decidedly averse to any promise of pecuniary assistance being made. We cannot consider the project of such vital and paramount importance to the interests of India, as would justify us in placing a charge upon the resources of the empire for its construction and maintenance.

We have, &c.,

(Signed) MAYO,

NAPIER OF MAGDALA,
JOHN STRACHEY,

R. TEMPLE,

C

J. F. STEPHEN,
B. H. ELLIS,
H. W. NORMAN.

Sir Henry

It was stated by Sir Henry Rawlinson, in his Rawlinson. evidence before the committee on the Euphrates Valley Railway, that we had made a contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Company, which would terminate in 1880, for the conveyance of the mails from Suez to Bombay at the rate of only 9 miles an hour. The introduction of compound engines has now enabled the Company to perform the work with a consumption of less than two-thirds of the original amount of fuel; and their new steamers could run at the rate of 11 miles an hour, at the same expense which was formerly incurred in running 9 miles an hour.

Lord Sand

hurst.

It was explained by Lord Sandhurst that a reduction of a few days in the time occupied in sending troops from England to India would have been of comparatively small importance in the suppression of the Indian mutiny. Our communication with Delhi was absolutely cut off, and therefore the period of four or five days gained in the journey from England would have been lost in India, owing to the impossibility of forwarding the troops on their arrival into the interior of the country. Being pressed to give his opinion as to the, at first sight, obvious advantage of shortening the passage from England, Lord Sandhurst replied :- -'It depends very much upon where the troops are wanted, and what are the facilities for getting them forward when they arrive. In the year 1857 there were, with the exception of very short distances of railway, no facilities at all, and the only possible means by which

we could forward the troops was, in some manner or other, to make use of the carriages drawn either by bullocks or by horses. Now, on the other hand, we have the railway stretching all over India. We can throw our troops from one end of India to the other, just as troops could be thrown from one end of Europe to the other. The very fact of having those facilities of communication renders it possible for us now to make rapid concentrations of troops by means of the resources of the country, which put such a contingency as that of 1857 out of the question; and if that be admitted, the military necessity of saving five or six days, or even two or three weeks, by such a route as that now proposed, would not seem to have such importance as it would otherwise possess.'

Views of

Our Consuls, residing on the line of route proposed Consuls. for the Euphrates Valley Railway and the districts adjacent thereto, were invited by a circular from the Foreign Office, issued in 1871, to express their opinion as to the feasibility of the scheme. The result was that they agreed in considering the construction of the line perfectly practicable; but doubts were expressed as to the value of the work from an English point of view. Mr. Gifford Palgrave concurred with Sir Henry Rawlinson in the opinion that it would be of immense importance to India to be in continuous railway communication with Europe, but that it would be of very trifling importance merely to have the territory between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf bridged over by a railway, while there still remained

a considerable sea voyage on either side to be accomplished. In a commercial point of view, no railway could compete successfully with the Suez Canal, unless the communication with India were continuous from the shores of the Mediterranean.

If the Indian Government did not attach sufficient importance to the Euphrates Valley line to justify any promise of pecuniary assistance,' the acquisition by Russia of territory in Armenia cannot be regarded as inimical to British interests.

The only serious danger to be apprehended is of another kind. Do what we will for the people of India, our rule must always be viewed by the natives as a foreign domination. India was subjugated by our arms, and it is by force alone that it is held in subjection. It is idle to hope that railways, irrigation works, and our well-intentioned but not always discreet legislation and administration of justice will reconcile the Hindoo ryot, still less the more ambitious spirits, of superior rank and education, to our authority. The advance of Russia in Asia tends to increase her prestige, and to some extent to diminish our own influence. By the circulation through the bazaars of India of rumours of invasion, the disaffected and turbulent elements in the native population might be set in motion, and another mutiny might take place. It is to prevent the recurrence of such a catastrophe that the efforts of our statesmen have been wisely directed, and that Afghanistan has been agreed upon as an intermediary zone.

danelles.

There remains the opening of the Dardanelles. The DarThis is a question which can only be settled by the European powers in conference. Austria is far more seriously concerned than England in the maintenance of the existing restrictions, and Austria will do nothing to oppose the demands of Russia. The subject would be more important to ourselves, if Russia were now, or were hereafter likely to become, a first-class, or even a second-class naval power. Experience, however, has shown that, with her own native resources, Russia cannot produce the matériel of a modern fighting navy. Russia, which, at the outbreak of the Crimean war, destroyed the Turkish fleet at Sinope, has so far receded, in a naval sense, in the interval which has elapsed, that she has yielded to Turkey the command of the seas without a struggle. The opening of the Dardanelles will not give one seaman or one ironclad to the Russians and if the Russian navy dare not fące the navy of Turkey, it is not probable that it would engage the fleet of England. If there were any reason to apprehend such a contingency, nothing would be easier than to maintain an effective blockade at the Dardanelles. Where an inferior power, like the Southern confederacy in the American civil war, possesses an extensive line of coast, it may be difficult for an enemy, however superior in strength, to prevent a privateer from occasionally evading the blockade. The Dardanelles are not more than a mile wide, and they are some fifty miles in length. Here, therefore, the stronger navy is enabled to make full use of its advantages.