THE EUPHRATES RAILWAY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 140, 22 April 1879, Page 2

THE EUPHRATES RAILWAY.

The Neue Wiener Tagblatt states that it has received intelligence from Constantinople that the British Ambassador there has submitted to the Porte a project for the construction of the Euphrates Valley Railway, consisting of twenty-six articles, the chief of which are-(l) the Porte, neither having the necessary capital for the enterprise, nor in its present financial state, being able to guarantee the payment of interest on the amount required for that work, makes over to England the right of undertaking the task; (2) the British Government undertakes to provide the funds. As an equivalent, the Porte will (1) cede 10,000 square metres of land for every kilometre of the lines which is to extend from Ismid, through Alexanto the Persian Gulf; (2) the Porto will give England the right to establish a colony of 100,000 Europeans on land given gratuitously by the Turkish Government for this purpose; (3) as a guarantee for the sums expended Turkey will cede to England for a period to be more precisely fixed hereafter the revenues of the Pashalics of Bassora, Damascus, and Bagdad. The correspondents add that the guarantee by England of the loan of £25,000,000 being made dependent on tho- acceptance of the project, and the Turkish Government urgently needing the money, the Porte will scarcely be in a position to refuse the proposals. The project in its two principal parts—the cession—namely of territory along the line, and the colonisotion of the same—is in principle similar to the original project for tiie Suez Canal, which, however, was not approved of by the Porte, a sum of 80,000,000f. being awarded as an idemnity to the company, and the revennes of Bassora, Bagdad, and Damascus being mortgaged for that onethird of the shares of the Suez Canal Company which the then Viceroy, Said Pasha, took on his own account: It does not seem, therefore, surprising that for the construction of the AsiaticRailway a combination similar to that originally contemplated for the making of the canal should be formed, nor should the superintendence by the British Government of any practicable raiiway scheme in Asia excite surprise. Pending however, confirmation of the intelligence, the probability is that the scheme above detailed is only contemplated by one or other of the companies competing for the Asiatic lines rather than one directly proposed by the British Government on its own account.