of actual injustice by the chiefs. But some things we will not allow at any cost, and of these the most important at this moment are tribal fighting, the slave trade, and oppression when it rises to the height of murder and robbery. If in the lifetime of the present generation we can stamp these out and induce the natives to adopt a few of the elements of a civilised system of agriculture and commerce we shall have done a very good job of work and set an admirable example to our successors.

I cannot conclude without pointing out that I have written as if Sir David Chalmers were still alive. I had rather incur the danger of criticising the work of a dead man too freely than leave it to be supposed that I could say more if I would. I hope that I have not been in any way unfair in this matter. Certainly everything that I have said is consistent with a keen sense that he concluded a long and laborious career in the service of his country by a mission which no doubt hastened his death, and in the execution of which he was actuated throughout by a high sense of duty.

HARRY L. STEPHEN.

AN ALL-BRITISH RAILWAY TO CHINA

THE great Siberian Railway is some way off completion, but is already bringing about some far-reaching changes on the map of Asia, and we may rest assured that the changes will be still more rapid and comprehensive as soon as traffic is once opened across the Asiatic continent to Port Arthur. It has already been the means of transferring Manchuria and the greater part of the Liao-tong province to the occupation and virtual protectorate of Russia; it is fast converting Port Arthur into one of the strongest and most formidably garrisoned fortresses of the world, and is bringing the whole of Northern China within the influence, if not the actual grasp, of Russia.

What is to be our reply to all this? On nearly every side we hear complaints of the want of a definite British policy, but so far no very clear suggestions have been put forward for remedying the situation. Lord Charles Beresford, after making a valuable and instructive tour throughout China, has formulated an elaborate programme, which, if practicable, would probably set China on her legs again, and certainly increase British prestige in the Far East. His recommendations are in themselves excellent, and such as are manifestly called for by the circumstances of a situation which, when I went over the ground, a few months before Lord Charles did, seemed to me deserving of far more urgent attention at the hands of Her Majesty's Government than they were receiving. The drawback of Lord Charles's policy is this: that China will not reform unless she is forced to do so, and that, partly through geographical disadvantages, but more through Ministerial indifference, Great Britain no longer occupies the predominant and powerful position in the councils at Peking that she formerly held. A combination of three or more Powers might probably bring successful pressure to bear on China to induce her to set her house in order, but there appears to be no present likelihood of such a union, and meantime Russia's influence is being fast developed, and ours is on the wane.

What, then, is to be our answer? Surely common sense tells us to try and strengthen our influence by the same means as Russia is utilising for hers. She is recasting the map of Asia in her own interests by the device of a grand trunk line to China: why should not Great Britain do the same? Why should not we carry a con

tinuous line from the Mediterranean to the Yang-tze, through Southern Asia, to counterbalance that traversing Siberia, and thus link up and develop the British zone in Asia? In some respects we are more favourably situated for carrying into effect a transcontinental project of this sort than Russia was and is. Across India the railway network has been already spread, and though through trains from West to East, say from Kurrachee to Assam or Burma, are still in the womb of the future, the links that will render this possible will not take long to forge. Moreover, there is nothing, so far as we know, between the Nile and the Yang-tze which at all approaches in point of difficulty to the extraordinary physical obstacles encountered in the Central Siberian and Trans-Baikal sections of the Russian railway. The inherent point of difference between the two enterprises is that the Russian line will for the most part traverse her own dominions, as far, at least, as the Chinese frontier, while a proportion of the proposed British railway would run through regions where, though our influence may be paramount, the actual sovereignty vests in other hands. Nevertheless, it has for some time been apparent to those who have studied the political development of Arabia, Persia, and Baluchistan, to say nothing of further India, that Great Britain is the future mistress of Southern Asia. No other European nation will ever be permitted to settle on the shores of the Indian Ocean, and the surest way of consolidating our rule in a region where no other Power but ours can be allowed to intrude, is to link up our scattered possessions and supply the quick means of communication that a railway from the Mediterranean to Mid-China would afford.

Before considering the detailed route that the proposed British railway to China would take, it is well to reflect on some of the changes that the Siberian Railway will in any case bring about. The development of Siberian resources, as sketched out in the interesting article in the Contemporary Review for August, though excessively important, must be a work of time. The immediate result will be to supply a rapid means of transit for passengers and mails to the Far East. According to Vladimir's' recent work Russia on the Pacific, there will be a considerable saving both of time and expense to those who adopt the Russian Trans-Asiatic Railway route in preference to the Suez Canal P. and O. sea line to Hong Kong and Shanghai. The former will find the duration of their journey reduced to fifteen and twelve days respectively, instead of the thirty and thirty-three days that the P. and O. steamers take at present to cover the distance. This is based on an estimate of forty-five versts, or thirty miles, an hour-a very moderate rate of railway speed. Moreover, the cheapness of the new Russian railway line will be a very important feature. According to the same authority, the cost of a first-class fare from London to Shanghai

by rail to Vladivostok and steamer to Shanghai, together with the cost of food for seventeen days, will amount to 390 roubles, or 40l., against 772 roubles, or 80l., viâ Brindisi, by the sea route. Consider what this means. All European passengers for China, Japan, and the East Indies, say, east of Singapore, will preferably use the Siberian line and save both time and money. The effect of this must be to divert a large slice of traffic from the coffers of the Suez Canal and Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Companies into the pockets of the Russian Company, for passengers and mails, and a certain proportion of goods, say, the more perishable and valuable sort, will infallibly choose the quickest route. How eagerly business people are looking for the opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway may be seen from the experiments recently made by the German Imperial Post Office to send their mails even now overland from Berlin to Tientsin. In a few instances the mails arrived sooner by the Siberian Railway than if they had been sent by sea, but in general they reached their destination later. The Russian postal authorities were often unable to forward the heavy German letterbags from the Chinese frontier by mounted post via Urga, Kalgan, and Peking to Tientsin, and consequently generally left them to be conveyed by the slow monthly carriage service across the desert. It is intended to resume these experiments in the winter, as soon as the Gulf of Pe-chili becomes frozen, and in the meantime it is clear that the further the Siberian Railway is prolonged the easier the experiment becomes. When once the conveyance of mails has settled down into this quick channel it will be difficult to induce the British public to cleave to the old P. and O. route.

Therefore in advocating the construction of a British railway from the Mediterranean to India and China I trust I shall not be met with the well-worn argument that I am interfering with the vested interests of British steamship companies. A foreign railway, that must and will very seriously interfere with these interests, is fast nearing its completion: all I venture to advocate is the construction of a British line to subserve British needs and counterbalance the other, commercially and politically.

We now proceed to consider the route, which, roughly speaking, follows for a considerable length the parallel of thirty degrees N. latitude. The Western point of departure must clearly be Alexandria or Port Said. Bearing in mind that our great object is to secure a British railway, which will run through the British zone or sphere, and interfere as little as possible with the French, German, Russian, or Turkish claims which might attend present attempts to revive the old Euphrates Valley project, we naturally turn to Egypt, whose position marks her out from every point of view as the half-way house' on the road from England to the East. When a Select Committee of the House of Commons recommended in 1872 that a railway line

should be run from the Syrian Coast to the Persian Gulf, England had not a pied-à-terre in those regions. Since then we have acquired permanent rights in the Suez Canal, and have occupied Egypt and Cyprus, where our footing is now assured. Cairo and Alexandria, from their unrivalled central position and accessibility to three continents and as the termini of both the Cape to Cairo and Egypto-Indo-Chinese lines, are destined to regain much of their ancient prestige, and become two of the most important cities of the world. From Lower Egypt to Western India the shortest and most direct line passes through the Isthmus of Sinai, Northern Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and Baluchistan, and this is the route which fulfils the conditions of a railway line passing through the British sphere. It has been described in detail by Mr. C. E. D. Black in a paper read before the Society of Arts on the 7th of May 1897, and after perusing all that has been written about it, pro and con, it appears to me still to hold the field.' Its directness is unquestionable, as it is only 2,400 miles in length from the Mediterranean to Kurrachee, a distance that would be covered in a little more than three days, as compared with the nine or ten days that are occupied in the long roundabout sea journey down the Red Sea, through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and across the Indian Ocean; its political objections are slight, and would be easily surmounted, while the physical obstacles, except at the head of the Persian Gulf, are conspicuous by their absence.

From Kurrachee to Mandalay the proposed railway would pass over the Indian systems, and would of course need linking up' at several points, while the union of the Assam and Burma systems is still to come. But these matters lie within the competence of the Indian Government they are not dependent on the acquiescence of Foreign Powers; and it may be taken for granted that as soon as the Egypto-Indian Railway on the one side, and the Burma-Chinese Railway on the other, approach completion, the Government of India will need very little pressure to induce them to supply all facilities for a through railway from the Mediterranean to China.

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From Mandalay to Kunlong the railway line now under construction by the Indian Government is making good progress, and beyond it a very important step has been gained by Lieutenant Watts Jones's, R.E., discovery of a practicable route towards the Upper Yangtze from Yung-chang-fu via Mong-kyang to Yinchau. Moreover, the careful survey made by Captains Pottinger and Davies has shown that a fairly easy route for a railway exists from Kunlong to the Yang-tze, reaching the great river at Su-chow (Sui-fu), an important trade mart about a hundred miles higher up the river than Chun-king and close to the confluence of the Yung-ning, which is one of the chief commercial waterways of the province of Sze-chuan.