THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1909. THE CONQUERING RAILWAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9539, 10 July 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1909. THE CONQUERING RAILWAY.

The progress of the Cape to Cairo railway, as reported by cable recently, is symbolical of a very remarkable general intrusion of the "iron horse" into ancient and primitive i lands. In Africa itself the rapidity with which the railway worms its way about the continent is poignantly romantic. It screams over Egypt, that "land of ruins," and through the Soudan, the scene of a splendid barbarism whose cities crumbled away ages ago under drifts of sand and the attrition of fierce wars, both alike irresistible. It penetrateg the Congo, the theatre of ancient empire and present white rapacity. And it reattracts men, after centuries of seclusion and black tribal strife, to Mashonaland and Matabeleland, once veritable Ophirs, if not actually those of the Phoenicians. The wellworn saying that out of Africa comes ever something new is revivified as the railway rattles about the dark continent and truly discovers novelty, there by recalling present-day civilisation's attention to the world-old and the long-forgotten, its precursors. So in Asia, that other earliest source of human life and history. The modern traveller may book from London to Pekin the same as he would from London to Paris, and make the whole journey by up-to-date transit, from the Chanpel steamer +o the railway that rushes him through Siberia and eventually lands him in the capital of the people whose more reliable traditions go back to three thousand years before Christ. Or he can book, if his fancy turns to another phase of historic Asia, to Bagdad, and eventually stroll about the streets where Haroun-al-Raschid wandered, and the master-stories of fiction were spun. To certain'minds there may be something semi-sacrilegious in this invasion. The Mohammedan welcomes the railway innovation, foreseeing that it will enable him to do his duty the more easily, and perhaps that if it brings the foreigner into the sacred places the same foreigner will have plenty of money to distribute in baksheesh. Which, of course, is the sensible way to look at things. "Put the foot of action into the stirrup of opportunity" is advice ascribed t.o the late Ameer of Afghanistan, and doubtless the Oriental mind generally grasps the hard sense of it. European civilisation has done wonders for Egypt, it may

recall. If it has bridged the Nile, what greater harm is in that than in running rafts across the waters? It has trained the Egyptian fighting man to "stand upon his feet and play the game," as Kipling put it; but how much better tor him that he should be able to play it than that that accomplishment should be peculiar to his enemy. Similarly with all this, the railway means the incomparable advantages of utility—ease, rapidity, and surety, whether for man or what he produces. Human philosophy would say that while the poet n.ay protest that glory and loveliness have passed away and no wreathed incense is seen upborne to meet the smiling day, there are other things that bring contentment, and£one of them is the shortest way to get'there. Considered merely as a swiftly expanding means of improved iransit, however, the railway building that is going on in different parts of the world is wonderful. Everywhere the moving idea seems to be that which inspired the Cape to Cairo line, of through connection. Even New Zealand has realised the importance of the notion which the late Sir Julius Voeel propounded nearly 40 years ago, and which finds modarn expression in the multiplication of trans-continental lines in Canada and the United States. A trans-Mexican, railway is building, in the hope—j destined to be frustrated, seem—or competing with the|Panama Canal. An even larger project js a down-south South American line which, if it is built, ought to do a great deal to harmonise the mixed republics of that continent. In the meantime much will be done in that respect by a railway across the Andes from Chili to Bolivia, the contract for which has just been let to an English firpi at a price exceeding three million pounds, and which, in addition to touching the highest point rails have ever been laid, at, will connect by commerce two characteristically quarrelsome States. A line linking up the Florida Keys, or islets, now nearly completed, runs far across viaducts into the sea to clutch detached American territory closer to the mainland and shorten the route to Cuba. In Canada a million and a half is being spent merely to improve transcontinental railway accessories in the form of docks and storage. In South Africa over four hundred miles of new railways have just been authorised in the Transvaal alone In Europe the French and Spanish Governments have concluded an arrangement for a trans-Pyrenean railway, while lines are built and building that will enable the Apline visitor to get to the iciest heights without making any foolhardy experiments in face-climbing. What all this means is that the railway is one of civilisation's greater boons, and that, the sensible are taking advantage of it.