File 4345/1912 'Trans-Persian Railway' [‎154v] (313/330)

The memorandum drawn up hy the Russian Consortium recognises
Seistan as the point of junction as it states “ tlie nearest
point of the British Indian system is Nushki from where the
English are carrying a line to Scistan *\
(2) The line to be built as an international one by Russia, France and
England.
2. The Secretary of State asks that the scheme be considered by the Gov
ernment of India both from the commercial point of view and also in respect
to its immediate local consequences. He also requests that the Government
of India will take into consideration the question of the railway connec
tion between the Russian and Indian systems in general.
3. Taking first the commercial and immediate local consequenoas, it may
be said that—
(#) As a through line connecting India and Europe, the proposal has'no
claim to any merit from the Indian commercial point of view.
The possibility of goods traffic being carried by the line between
England and India is quite out of the question.
(if) The difference in length between the rail and sea route to India,
taking Karachi as a centre, will be very small, and the sea route
will alway s be by far the cheaper in cost of transport of goods,
besides being more convenient and also shorter to places in the
south of India.
(iii) As regards passenger traffic, the volume of such traffic between
England and India is of no great magnitude, and it would be
years after tbe proposed line had been built, before a well-
organised service could be installed between Calais and Ind’a,
over the many different lines with various breaks of gauge over
which it would have to run in Europe. Moreover, a passenger to
any part of India except the north would find that when he had
added the cost of his railway ticket from Nushki to his destina
tion in India, the total cost of his rail ticket from Calais to
destination in India would he higher than the steamer fare
which he would have to pay, as steamers have at the present
time a large margin within which to reduce their fares. In
regard to passenger traffic between England and India the prac
tical effect of tbe building of the railway will probably be that
steamer fares will be reduced and they will still retain the traffic,
further passenger traffic between Europe generally and India
must be small. There is no emigration traffic, such as the
Siberian line carries and much revenue from this class of
business could not be expected.
4. The Siberian Railway cannot be taken as a parallel case on which
any assumption can be built. The Siberian Bail way route shortens the
distance between the centre of Europe and the Far East by a half. Moreover
it gives a direct railway route, much shorter than the sea route, to an area of
country infinitely larger than India comprising, as it does, the important
ports of China and Japan.
The passenger traffic over the Siberian Railway is most cosmopolitan in
character and of very consid Table volume, due to the big interest which most
of the European countries have in the Far East.
1 travelled the Siberian line from Port Arthur to Moscow in
iyU4), there were express through trains running every other day, the Wagon
Hits Company providing every alternate train between Irkutsk and Moscow.
Since 1901, the traffic has still further increased and the Wagon Lits Company
now run their trains; there were also daily trains running at slower speed.
6. In addition to^ the through passenger traffic the Siberian line serves
most important towns U Asiatic Russia, and affords a convenient means of
transport of goods to areas which before could only have beefi served by a
long sea route and a troublesome land journey by cart.