HL Deb 17 July 1882 vol 272 cc674-85
LORD LAMINGTON

, on rising to call the attention of the Government to the Report of the Euphrates Valley Railway Committee, and to move for Papers, said, that that Committee sat in 1871 to consider the subject of the desirability of constructing a railway in the Euphrates Valley. They reported on the matter to the House; but the subject of their Report had never been submitted to their Lordships, and he thought the House would agree with him that no time could be more hopeful or opportune than the present for bringing a subject in connection with it before their Lordships which had long been recognized as one of great importance—namely, the communication between this country and India. The question of enlarging that communication by a railway passing through the valley of the Euphrates was of great importance, and had for many years occupied attention on the part of both the Home and Indian Governments. It was so considered in the time of the Marquess Wellesley; and, in 1834, the Government of Lord Melbourne thought the matter so important that Parliament was induced to vote £20,000, and the Government of India £5,000, for a survey of the whole line through the valley, and the survey was under taken by Sir John M'Neil and Colonel Chesney, two very eminent engineers. Their Report was a very valuable one. Nothing was done, however, and the matter was allowed to rest until the year 1857, when the Euphrates route once more claimed the attention of the Government. Lord Palmerston, referring to the Report of a Committee, of which Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham were Members, then appointed to examine into the matter, said that the Government were fully alive to the importance of the Euphrates route, that they had supported it in the past, and would continue to do so in the future. Subsequently, however, to that time, the scheme of the Suez Canal sprang up, and was carried out, and it was now a subject of absorbing interest in England. He trusted that the Government of the present day would not adopt the same attitude towards the undertaking he was now bringing under their Lordships' notice which it then assumed when the construction of the Suez Canal was suggested. Now, what were the arguments against that Canal? Why, that it would not pay, and that there would not be shipping enough to make it pay. The practical answer was, that they knew now how rapidly the tonnage passing through it increased, so that instead of 300,000 in 1870, in 1881 the Returns showed as much as 3,700,000 tons; while it was generally acknowledged that, if the Canal could be widened so as to admit the passage of double that amount of shipping, there could be very little doubt that the amount of shipping passing through would show a proportionate increase It was impossible, however, to double the width of the Canal; but it was not impossible to construct the Euphrates Valley Railway, and they had now an opportunity of carrying it out. Consul General Herbert, Lord Stratford do Redcliffe, and other authorities were in favour of it. Sir Henry Rawlinson, an authority of the greatest weight, had emphatically pronounced his approval of the scheme. In March, 1872, Sir Henry Rawlinson said— It cannot be doubted that there is a certain political value both to England and to India in the opening of a line such as is contemplated. The first great advantage is having an alternative line with Egypt; that must be a political object of considerable importance, especially in reference to the chance of local troubles in Egypt. If local troubles supervened in Egypt it might be of vital consequence to be able to avail ourselves of the other line of communication. Besides, the mere fact of our possessing an alternative line would, I think, also strengthen our prestige in India—that is to say, the knowledge that we had a double line, and that we wore not liable to have our communications interrupted by the single accident of local troubles in Egypt, would, I think, improve our position in India. Then there is another element of political value in the development of the resources of Turkey, which would, no doubt, follow from the opening of this railroad. Their Lordships would see that the reference to local troubles in Egypt was specially in point at the present time. He would also refer the House to another great authority on this subject; he alluded to Mr. Consul Barker. Mr. Barker, who had resided 26 years as Vice Consul and Acting Consul at Seleucia, Antioch, and Aleppo, and had, perhaps, as intimate an acquaintance with the country as any man living, stated in an official Report, addressed by him to Lord Granville, that— A railway through Mesopotamia as a route to India would not, at first, be productive of much income to a company from traffic; but in a few years—certainly before the railway could be finished—the cultivation of grain would increase a hundredfold, and would go on increasing a thousandfold, and would attain to a magnitude and extension quite impossible to calculate, because bad harvests arc almost unknown in these parts, for there is always plenty of rain and a hot sun to ripen the corn. Populous villages would spring up all along the line, as there is abundance of sweet water everywhere. Cereals can be grown there so cheaply that no country the same distance from England—say, for instance, Russia—could compote with it at all. And if Great Britain finds it necessary to rely more on the importation of foreign corn, where could a better field be found than the fertile plains of Mesopotamia, the cradle of mankind, which has all the advantages of climate, soil, sun, and water in its favour? All this showed that the line could be made, and that it would be beneficial to this country, to India, and to the country through which it passed. Further, no difficulty would arise from any unwillingness on the part of the Porte to consent to the proposal. In answer to a letter upon the subject, written by Sir George Jenkinson, on the 16th of February, 1870, to His Excellency Musurus Pasha, Sir George Jenkinson received an answer, which he would read to the House. It was as follows:—

"Imperial Ottoman Embassy, March 12,1870.

My Dear Sir George,—Having communicated to my Government the contents of your letter of the 16th ult., respecting the project of a railway from Alexandretta to Aleppo, and from Aleppo to Bagdad and Bussorah, I hasten to inform you that, after mature consideration, the Sublime Porte has authorized me to declare to you that they accept and undertake to carry out all the conditions contained in your letter above referred to. In communicating to you this decision of the Imperial Government I do not hesitate to give you, according to your request, full authority to make of this letter such use as you may think necessary.

Believe me, &c,

MUSURUS."

That showed the attitude of the Turkish Government in 1870; and, considering that nine-tenths of the traffic passing through the Canal was British, he asked their Lordships whether they were prepared to make the same blunder now with respect to the railway that they made in years gone by with regard to the Canal—namely, to postpone the matter to a time when it was too late to make the railway? It should be seriously considered by the Government, looking at the events which were passing in Egypt. Not only that, but politically, commercially, and strategically considered, this country could not have too many means of communicating with our Eastern possessions, and it was most important that we should have alternate routes to India. It might be said that there were difficulties in the way of making such a railway in connection with the wild tribes of the districts through which it would pass; but it had been found that the independent Chiefs were quite willing to do everything in their power to open up the country. An article in The Times contained the following apt remarks on this subject:— The loss to England by exclusion from the Canal route would be political as well as commercial. To any other nation the fact that the Canal was obstructed, or that the control of it had fallen into hostile hands, could only mean that certain mercantile profits were placed in jeopardy) though even from this point of view it should not be forgotten that our stake exceeds in magnitude the stake of any rival Power twentyfold or thirtyfold. But in our case the necessity of keeping open the great highway between the Mother Country and her dependencies in Asia and the Southern seas is added to commercial interest and our financial interest in the Canal. Mr. Gladstone's attempt to show in 1877 that in time of war we might reasonably rely upon the Cape route has been abandoned by its author. It may be true enough that the Canal is too shallow and too narrow for the large and swift ocean-going steamers of the most modern type; but the moral is not that we should be willing to surrender the advantages of the Canal route—which may be measured by this single fact, that Bombay is distant from London 6,330 nautical miles by way of Suez, and 10,595 by way of the Cape—but that in time the necessity of enlarging and deepening the waterway through the Isthmus must be encountered, and the requisite improvements carried out at any cost. By the Euphrates Valley Railway we should save 10 days between London and Lahore and the North-West Provinces of India, and five days in the journey to Bombay. The general features of the projected railway might be summed up thus— 1. It would pass through 900 miles of level country, and if it were made, it would connect the Mediterranean with the head of the Persian Gulf, between which and Kurrachee and Bombay regular communication is now maintained by a line of powerful steamers subsidized by the Indian Government. 2. Making Kurrachee the European port of India in place of Bombay, it would save about 1,000 miles in the distance between England and India, and by the substitution of railway for boat transit would reduce the time occupied in the journey by one-half—i.e., to 10 days instead of 20 days. 3. It would render it possible to maintain India with a smaller European garrison than is now necessary, and would thus reduce our military expenditure. 4. It would save the Government large sums in sudden emergencies by the facilities it would afford—and that at all seasons of the year—for the transport of troops and stores. 5. It would enable troops from England to be landed at Kurrachee in about 14 days, and in two or three days more at Lahore, Peshawur, or Delhi. 6. It would subject an enemy advancing towards the North-West Frontier of India to easy attack in the flank and rear, and would render the invasion of India all but impossible. 7. It would make the resources of England so promptly available in the East that any hostile movement directed against us, whether from within or without our Indian Frontier, might thus be effectually checked before it could assume formidable proportions. 8. It would give our extensive military establishment in India a direct influence in support of our power and prestige in Europe. 9. It would give England the first strategical position in the world. 10. It would facilitate the protection of Asia Minor by England. He maintained, then, that they ought to see whether they could not at once take some steps to carry out that scheme, which had been proposed so often, and he was sure that the Government would recognize the importance of it. He was sure that the noble Earl the Leader of the House, if he had been present, would have admitted the importance of the question. If it were not constructed by Her Majesty's Government or a British Company, Russia or Germany, which had both been negotiating for concessions for the construction of a railway, and neither of which Powers was so much interested in the new route to India as this country, would he before us. He implored the Government not to shut their eyes to the great importance of the question. It had often been brought forward. They had made many great blunders. Lord Palmerston's Government made a great blunder in connection with the Suez Canal question, and they had only seen the mistake when it was too late. Let them not be too late again. They should derive benefit from their experience, and refrain from blundering in the case of the Euphrates Valley, the importance of which the Government should at once admit. Let them not give the Russian or German Governments the opportunity of making this line. Let them at once perceive the importance in a political, commercial, and strategical sense, of constructing the line by England or by English capital. He did not say anything about giving a guarantee for the £8,000,000, which, he believed, the scheme would cost; but let them be prepared to give a fair amount of encouragement and protection to those who were willing to make the line, which would place this country in the first political position in the world, would render the events now occurring near the Suez Canal of comparatively little importance, and would tend to maintain the glory and dignity of the Empire.

THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY

, in reply, said, that his noble Friend the Se- cretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Earl Granville) would have answered the noble Lord opposite (Lord Laming-ton) had he not been summoned to attend the Queen at Windsor; but, in his noble Friend's absence, it devolved upon him (the Earl of Kimberley) to say a few words on that occasion. The observations which the noble Lord had made were of very interesting character and related to a subject which had for many years excited a great amount of interest and attention both in India and in this country. In fact, he hardly remembered a time when the question of an alternative route to India by the Euphrates Valley had not been under discussion. As the noble Lord had stated, the result of that discussion culminated in the appointment of a Committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the whole subject. That Committee sat in 1871 and reported in 1872. They discussed all the alternative lines, and he thought they agreed as to which particular line would be most desirable; but they also went into the question of expense, and he believed that the amount required to construct such a line was reckoned at £10,000,000 sterling. The requisite capital, it appeared, could not be obtained without a guarantee from the Government, and from the time when the Report was presented until now no Government had thought it advisable to enter into such a guarantee. No one doubted that an alternative route or alternative routes to India might be constructed, and that they must all of them be valuable. They would increase trade, and would, of course, afford the means of expediting our communication with India by another line in case the Suez Canal should unfortunately be interrupted; and, no doubt, that would benefit the commerce of the whole world. It did not, however, follow that the Government ought to enter into a guarantee; and he had no authority for saying that the present Government, any more than the late Government, were prepared to give such a guarantee. He was afraid, therefore, that the project would have to remain what it had been for so long—namely, an interesting project, but one not likely very soon to be brought to a successful issue.

THE EARL OF DERBY

said, that, if he rightly understood his noble Friend (Lord Lamington), he was not asking for a guarantee either from the Imperial, or from the Indian Government. All he (the Earl of Derby) understood him to ask was for such unofficial assistance as might he fairly given by the State to any Company which undertook the construction of that line. If his noble Friend's request went no further than that, there could be no possible objection to it. In fact, the only persons who would he likely to have any cause for complaint would be the shareholders of the line. But having himself looked a little into that matter in former days, he (the Earl of Derby) saw little prospect of that railway being constructed without large and liberal assistance from either the English or the Indian Exchequer. In the present state of things, and considering the small amount of traffic that would arise from the desert districts through which it must pass, he did not think it would require much argument to convince their Lordships that an unguaranteed and unsubsidized line had not the slightest chance of success. It was true that a deputation had waited on Lord Palmerston on the subject, and that strong arguments had been used on the occasion, grounded on the advantage of a second line of communication with India; but since then the Suez Canal had been constructed, and a different state of things therefore existed. At the time referred to, not only was the Canal not made, but there was a strong belief that it never could be made. It must be borne in mind that what made a railway prosperous was passengers, goods, and mails, and there was not likely to be much prosperity of that kind, looking at the enormous expenditure of capital which would be necessary. His noble Friend had truly said that a saving of many miles would be gained by a line of this kind to the Persian Gulf, and that postal communication with India would be more rapid; but that was discussed a quarter of a country ago, when circumstances were different. Now that so large a proportion of the communication between this country and India was carried on by telegraph, it was far more important that the telegraph system should be rendered efficient and economical, than that a somewhat cheaper Mail Service should be provided. As to passengers, he thought his noble Friend had not sufficiently considered the difficult nature of the country over which this line was to pass. During half the year the line would be impracticable, owing to the excessive heat. This line, 700 miles in length, was to be carried through a burning desert in order to save four or five days; but there would be no passenger traffic over it for half the year. No doubt the Red Sea route was long, but it was performed in an open steamer, and not in a closed-up railway carriage. There was a great difference between travelling by a steamer, where it was possible to get some air, and being penned up in a railway carriage; and if a regiment of Europeans were sent by this line at any time between April and October, it was extremely probable that very few would arrive at their destination in a healthy condition. With regard to the goods traffic, all goods sent by this line would be liable to a double transhipment, the expense of which the goods could not bear, especially having regard to the competition of the Suez Canal. As his noble Friend did not propose to make this line a Government work, he would not enter into the question, which otherwise he might be prepared to raise—namely, the political difficulties which might arise in the event of protection being necessary in case of foreign invasion or domestic disturbance in the districts through which the line would pass; but such questions would have to be considered before anything could be done. No doubt their Lordships would agree with him as to the extreme importance of there being no interruption of the Suez Canal, nor did he believe that any British Government would permit it to be obstructed; but when it was said that the mere increase of traffic would make a second line necessary, as a matter of comparison between the two in an economical point of view, he believed that it would be found far more economical to widen and deepen the Suez Canal, rather than to construct a new line of communication. Many of the largest, and therefore most economical, class of vessels could not at present use the Canal, and he thought that money would be far more profitably spent in widening the Canal than in the construction of the proposed railway. Commercially speaking, he thought there would be a greater return from £1 spent on the former object than there would be from £10 spent on the latter. If the object of the Company was to obtain valuable commercial results, he had no hesitation in saying that he did not believe that they would be obtained by the Euphrates Valley line. The expenditure was far too heavy to afford a chance of any favourable returns; and even if such could be reasonably expected, he did not believe that either on political or commercial grounds the matter was one of urgent necessity.

LORD ELLENBOROUGH

said, that in alluding to the Suez or overland route to India the name of Captain Waghorn should not be omitted, as having been the instrument selected by the President of the India Board, in 1839, to carry out the arrangements for the Overland Mail Service to India, a noble Relative of his having been at that time First Lord of the Board of Control. A Camel Service should be first tried, not only to open communication with the different Chiefs, but as a means of ascertaining, to some extent, how far a Mail Service would be remunerative; also some intermediate railway communication would have to be first tried to ascertain how the proposal would work, in which the Government should assist in the shape of a subsidy. At any rate, not any step should be omitted to insure the proposed route eventually to this country, after the preliminary steps were more complete in respect to surveying the route.

THE EARL OF CARNARVON

said, that the question raised by his noble Friend (Lord Lamington) was one of great importance and interest; but, at the same time, there was no doubt that the proposed route was full of difficulties, and the main objection was that the termini would be at a great distance, and in the event of war that at Trebezond might be completely closed. There was, no doubt, something very attractive in an alternative route, which would be shorter than the existing route, and he (the Earl of Carnarvon) believed that this was the best that had been proposed for a railway through this district; but it would cost £8,000,000 or £10,000,000, and he could not see how any Company would undertake it as a commercial enterprize. The only justification for the Government affording any large assistance in its construction would be on military grounds; but there were three objections to it from that point of view. In the first place, the climate was so severe during half the year that it would be probably impracticable to send troops by the proposed route, closely packed for three days in railway carriages, without suffering a great deal; and, secondly, full advantage could not be taken of the railway unless it passed round the head of the Persian Gulf, and until, consequently, another line of railway was made to complete it. Lastly, it could hardly be denied that, although Colonel Chesney had stated that the tribes might be subsidized to prevent them doing mischief to the lines, yet an English general, in a time of difficulty and at a great crisis, would probably pause and consider how far he was justified in sending troops over long distances of railway lines that could not by any possibility be guarded, for it must be borne in mind that breaking up the line at any point might expose a large number of men to serious danger. There were, beyond doubt, two great lines of communication between this country and India—namely, the Suez Canal and the Capo route. They should not, though fully acknowledging the obvious value of the Suez Canal, neglect the Capo route. At present, the difference in the distances amounted, in point of time, to only 10 days, and that difference was a diminishing one as the largo steamers increased their speed. Believing, as he did, in the enormous importance of the route, yet he would urge the Government to omit nothing to insure the safety and efficiency of the old route by the Cape. He quite admitted that the heat of the climate by the Euphrates Valley route would be very distressing to railway passengers, that the expense of construction would be enormous, and there would be little likelihood of any return; and he thought that if any preference or assistance was given, it was far better that it should be given to the Cape route.

LORD BLANTYRE

said, there could be little, if any, doubt that a railway between the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf would pay, if the right line were taken. That line he would suppose to be from Alexandretta, by Aleppo, to Mosul, and along the left (East) bank of the Tigris to Bagdad. There would be no difficulty in passing soldiers along it—in hot countries, as in Spain, express trains started in the evening in place of the morning—the troops would travel at night, and pass the day resting in airy barracks. When the average return on about 10,000 miles of railways in India was about 5 per cent, a trunk railway, and selected line through Asiatic Turkey, must pay commercially. The difficulties were political. For instance, if an English Company had built a railway in Bessarabia, after the Crimean War—the Company would now find itself delivered over to Russia—the same, or something of the kind, might happen in Asiatic Turkey; but if England would give a guarantee, or a substantial subsidy, as in the case of the Suez Canal, the British nation would have an interest in supporting the Company. They did not fear for the undertaking as a commercial project, but required to be protected against political changes.

LORD LAMINGTON

, in reply, said, with reference to what had been said by his noble Friend (Lord Ellenborough), he would remind the House and the Government that all the preliminary steps had been taken, and, with the consent of the Turkish Government and the approval of Her Majesty's Government, the line could be commenced at once. He would move for the production of the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons of 1871, and also request that any communications with the Indian Government on the subject should be presented at the same time.

Moved for, "Reports from the Select Committee of the House of Commons of 1871 and 1872; together with the Minutes of Evidence, &c."—(The Lord Lamington.)

THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY

said, the Government would consent to the production of the House of Commons Committee's Report; but he could not undertake to say whether they would produce Correspondence with the Indian Government on this question without Notice being given.

Motion agreed, to.

Message to the Commons for Copy of the Reports from the Select Committee of that House of 1871 and 1872; together with the Minutes of Evidence, &c.