'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎240] (275/714)

PERSIA
practical conclusion, of the previous phases of Anglo-Afghan rela
tionship. Given such a protectorate, and England would not
only before long be free to run her iron rails where and whither
she pleased in Afghanistan—a line to the Persian frontier being
obviously one of the first that in such a case would demand consi
deration—bat, with the Afghans acting in concert with the British,
and with Russia and Great Britain (as ex hypothesi they would be)
coterminous powers, the objections which I have elsewhere so
strenuously urged against a junction of the Indian and Russian
railway systems in Afghanistan, and which I continue to hold,
would be minimised, if they did not disappear. For in such a
case, the buffer having vanished, the two empires would stand
cheek by jowl in Asia, as do Russia and Germany in Europe;
Enedand would be as much committed to defend Balkh or Herat as
O
she is now compelled to defend Portsmouth or Bombay; and the
respective railways of the two powers would have a tendency sooner
or later to be united. Such a consummation, however, even if
realisable, is as yet far distant. It can only arise in the event of
an independent Afghanistan—which is the justification and out
come of our present policy—proving to be impossible ; and in our
inability to venture any prophecy upon data so precarious, our
plans must be constructed so as to harmonise with a more im
mediate future.
When we approach the question of the quality of the country
opened up by a Beluchi-Persian railway, presuming it to be con-
Miiitary structed under existing political conditions, we advance
criticism a region in which the most conflicting evidence is
forthcoming from our authorities. From the strategical point of
view there are some who say that such a line would be vulnerable
both from the north and west. There are others who find in the
deserts on either side of the Helmund, and in the Helmund itself,
an ample protection. I am not here concerned to engage in the
strategical controversy, because there has probably never been a
strategical railway since locomotion by steam was discovered about
which the professors have not held diametrically opposite and con
tradictory opinions. It was so with the Transcaspian Railway, and
it would be so with a Nushki-Seistan railway. Nor am I even
concerned to discuss the strategical aspect of such a railway at all,
because I am not a soldier, and shall probably be told that I am
talking of what I know nothing about; although I may, in passing,