RAILWAYS

317

ones), will probably long stand in the way of the construction
 of this obvious link in a great international system.
Far more to our purpose it would be to extend westwards
 from Quetta through the Helmund desert to Seistan,
and thus secure an important and rapidly increasing trade
which the construction of the new caravan route has
opened up, whilst at the same time it might very easily
prove to be almost imperative that we should have the
power of concentrating troops in that direction. It will
aot be long before the question of the Nushki-Kharan
extension will reach an acute stage, and will demand a
definite answer.
From Peshawur to Kabul there is a well-known and
much-traversed road, down which there already pours
a very considerable Indian trade; nor can there be any
reasonable doubt that this road will be replaced by a railway
 ere many decades have passed. Afghan conservatism,
like that of China, cannot last for ever. This is the most
important, both on commercial and strategic grounds, of
any future railway project connected with India west of
Burma.
Much has been written, and much has been said,
about the connection between Calcutta and Mandalay.
The value of it" needs no insistence; but the difficulty
of it is great, and the cost would be excessive. From
the present northern terminus of the Burma state railway
at Myitkyina (Michina), the valley of the Irawadi stretches
northward for 150 miles in comparatively open plain. At
he end of the 150 miles lies nothing but primeval forest
and an unmapped country—but at this point it would not
be much more than 50 miles from the head of the Assam
system west of if, and separated from it by a wild hill
country, through which, however, a possible connecting
line has already been traced. The connection no doubt
will ultimately become a faif accompli, either by the route
‘ndicated or bv wav of Silchar and Manipur.

Railway statistics are to be found zn exfenso in the pages of the
Statistical Reports relating to India, and in a more condensed form in
‘he recent authoritative writings in such works as the Encv. Bri. Such