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INDIA

reports speak for themselves. The beginning of the twentieth century
has seen considerable extensions of railway traffic within the borders of
British India, but no very great developments in the borderland, where
in some directions (between Mandalay and the Kunlén ferry, for instance)
the recent period has been one rather of retrogression than otherwise.
In the direction of Seist4n, the Quetta-Nushki extension should give a
certain impetus to a slackening trade ; but it is not a short projection of
:he line from the Indian system here and there which will produce any
radical effect in improving trade communications. A time will come (it
may not be far off) when the necessity of an agreement with Russia will
be acknowledged as the only means of opening up the overland avenues
of approach to India from the west, and with a definite policy of peaceful
intercommunication there will come such a vast impulse to railway traffic
as could be achieved by no other projected line in the world.