The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-12 00:00:00

2' TIE WAD( OF MUSCAT-THE EXPEDITION
TO THE PERSIAN (,GULF.

RUSSIAN RAILWAY,';'.

(From, the Times.)
So the Russian Railway scheme does not go down
with Europe. England won't tonch it, and even
France is forced to drop it. There must be either
some very awkward circumstance about the affair
or an unaccountable degree of prejudice for nothing
can be more inviting than the proposal itself to the
raw British understanding. Think of the conces-
sion of 2,500 miles of railway through a great and
flourishing empire, for a considerable terra of
years, at an estimate which hae the proof of ex-
perience, with the advantage of cheap laud, cheap
labour—everything, in fact, dirt cheap. Why
don't people flock to it ? What are the small shop-
keepers and the country clergy about ? Where are
the widows and half-pay officers, the surgeons, and
gentlemen's butlers, the gambling countesses, and
speculative baronets ? This ought to be another
South Sea Company, auother Mississippi plantation
scheme. We feel positively ashamed of our country,
and even of France, our usually courageous and
speculative ally. The scrip ought to be now at 5 per
cent. premium. For the nucleus of 40,000,0001.
there ought to be a nebulous tail of some 100,000,0001.
paper scrip. The cry should be, " Still they come ;"
still more colonels, still more unprotected females,
still more fathers of families possessed with the
very natural desire to become rich at once, and to
" heap list coals" on the head of a fallen enemy.
But no ; au ominous silence is all the reply to a
man who asks us to make the trunk lines of a great
empire on very fair terms. We subscribe our half
or quarter million readily to make a railway from
one little town to another town still less, through
twenty miles of barren sand in the face ot two
or three rivals. We run a line from a decayed
town to an unapproachable coast, and back again.
We do it when we know we shall lose the money
and shall live to want it. But we have not a
farthing for the Emperor of All the Russias. In
vain do -war and peace alternately unfold to us the
boundless natural resources, the immense arsenals,
populous capitals, and enterprising genius of the
empire. So narrow-minded, so home-sick is our
spirit, that we would rather make a railway from
our dear little market town—at least what was a
market town in the reigns of the Edwards, though
it has three railways already—to almost anywhere
else, though we don't mean to go there, than in-
vest a sixpence in a line from Moscow to Odessa.
That is the fact, and why is it. We will try to
answer the question.
The main cause of this unusual hesitation is a /
gloomy misgiving that we shall not have fair play.
It seems odd to talk of fair play in the matter of i
railways, where there has been so much foul play
hitherto. But people always hope they will be a
match for foul play of the ordinary sort, on their
own level, and when
_perhaps there is a wide
debatable ground of play that is neither quite fair
nor quite foul. What if a man should be sharp
enough to get an inkling of foul play, and share its
gains, or at least be aware of its frauds ? All rail-
ways are exposed to the tricks of the market. That
cannot be helped. No doubt there is a very clever,
and indeed very useful class of men, who can run
shares up and down with marvellous dexterity, and
who are usually found to sell in a dear market and
buy in a cheap one ;-,,vliereas the fond public is per-
tinaceously addicted to the contrary practice. We
tolerate this. It is fair play, for it is a man's own
fault if he is not wide awake. We tolerate enor-
mous Parliamentary expenses. It is only fair play
between company and company. We tolerate a
ruinous price for land. That is fair play, for every
man may fairly get his price for his own property.
We tolerate jobbing directors. It is the share-
holder who elects them. We have tolerated loans to
new States founded yesterday in unknown conti-
nents. That was more than fair play ; it was a
noble game. What have we not tolerated, so long as
it was only "diamond cut diamond ?" But in this
instance people were asked to put their heads into
a bear's mouth. There was no kind of equality.
We were to subscribe the forty millions and make
the 2,500 miles of railway for a man who held in
his own hand all the conditions of the enterprise,
and could bind or loose them at discretion. No-
body can say how labour may be affected by the
laws of serfdom, by the rules of military proscrip.
tion and service, or by a mere Imperial ukase, in
political emergencies. No one can estimate the
difficulties and the expense peculiar to a system of
underpaid and consequently corrupt functionaries,
whose immense powers of obstruction must be got
over with money. Doubtless the Emperor, if he
wished, could make everything straight for the
railway contractors, and most probably he would
wish, nothing hindering ; but what if something
should hinder, or he should not wish g There is a
terrible feeling of insecurity in dealing with one
who is so entirely the arbiter of our fate. Few
Englishmen would endure to act with a man of
whom they could not even complain, and whose
superiority deprived them not only of reason, but
even of a tongue.
Take, for example, that ruling condition of rail-
way enterprise—the price of iron, to which the
"Hertfordshire Incumbent" calls our attention.
We all know how at home directors have made
fortunes and shareholders have been ruined by the
ups and downs of this one article. Russia has but
little ircn of her own ; she has no such demand as
to have developed the production of it, and she
absolutely prohibits sea-borne iron. 'I here is some-
tieing approaching to a jest in such a country invit-
ing strangers to make her iron railways. Pharaoh
refused to find straw for the making of bricks, but
he did not absolutely debar the unfortunate brick-
makers from getting it where they could. The
speculators, if any eart be found, who undertake
these railways will have to Icy down rails at Mos-
cow itself with bar iron at 221.. Indeed iron is so
scarce that throughout the greater part of Russia
the farm horses go unshod, the cart wheels have
no tires, and the ploughshare is of wood, just
pointed with iron. The demand for the proposed
railways would add a tenth to the present con-
sumption, and Russia is not a country like ours,
full ot coal, practical miners, and machinery for
all purposes, where the supply of iron can at any
time in a few years be brought up to the demand.
Unless the contractors could supply themselves
with iron from this country they would soon find
themselves ruined, and obliged to leave the un-
finished work in the hands of their taskmaster. It
would not be easy to allow them to import their
own iron for their own purposes without throwing
open the trade altogether. They would want the
iron in many different forms, and in all parts of
the empire at once, not only for the permanent
rails, but also for temporary rails, for carts, bar-
rows, and tools. No special right of importation
would answer so extensive and multifarious a
want. Yet we hear not a word about revising the
tariff, and we know, by our own experience at
home,
that financial reform is not to be done in
a day. There are iron lords in- Russia as there are
here, and some of them are the richest and most
powerful men in the empire. Not even an Empe-
ror can blow away in a moment the artificial fabric
on which huge fortunes, noble titles, and pecuniary
settlements of all kinds are founded. No pledge
is even offered on this cardinal question, and per-
haps none will he accepted, when the next Czar,
and perhaps this, may be induced, and even neces-
sitated, to break it.
Indeed, Russia is in the case of a man whose
theory of social intercourse is simply
neighbours—that is, to use
for inform
theinfnrs
m i to use
own conhis
ation, to an-
venience. To one he go
other for occasional amusement, toanother for his
vote and interest, to another for a loan, to another
for advice,
to another for his
naelotreheed:a he
neglects difficulty,
to
_
duties of society till the return of a
eulty, llthea and, the purpose once
similar occasion. Russia has usually nothing
say to us all, and does not hesitate to tell
US
she
would prefer our room to our company anywhere
Just now, however, she wants money, and she
wants railways ; so she puts on her civil looks, acts
the good neighbour, and asks us just to be so good
as to help her. But this is not so easy. There are
diffictilties in the way, and those of Russia's own
making. She has created a class interested
in the prohibition of sea-borne
depending on
doubt-
less, also many arrangements nu the
I
prosperity of that class. In fact, we are constitu-
ted for society in its large, constant and generous
sense, not for fits and starts of mutual convenience.
International intercourse ought not to be a series
of great exceptional transactions in matters of a
simply material character. We are clearly meant
to associate on better and more regular terms.
That is what the Czar should aim at in the first in-
stance. Let him be a better neighbour ; let him
give up Xll unneighbourly ideas of getting the
better of us and filching a bit of our land here and
there ; let him exchange the produce of the two
countries and levy no more customs than he may
absolutely require for the maintenance of his esta-
blishments, and then we shall see our way to do
Our part in the construction
of his railways or any
other extraordinary
service he may require.

DEsTitucTivu FM INii i
10 o'clock a fire broke on--..
v tgli -10 n Friday night at
in the extensive establi,h-
ment of Victor (Yates, RI better known as the Lagan
Foundry. The part of premises burnt comprises
the model room, beneath which.retmi
grease and oil used
in carrying on the very extensive trade of the foundry
were kept, and fed the flames, which raged with irre-
sistible fury. At two o'clock the fir
;.t loss of pro-
must result,
i
e had nit been
suppressed. We regret to record thezce
Works
perty, and the many disadvantages
Mat only to the proprietors of the but to the
hundreds of workmen and others employed in this long
established foundry. About three o'clock t,l
gration was subdued. The damage has been, e'e„t"ntit, 31
at 8,0001. to 10,0001. All information on thiisina- hene,i
at present is founded on mere surmise. It is, how:
ver, amply covered by insurance.

The Imanmat of Muscat, situated at the en-
tt ance of the Persian Gulf, extends for about iOO
miles along the coast, on the Arabian side, and
nearly as many miles inland. The Imaurn has
long been on friendly terms with the British Go-
vernanent and the East India Company, and has
emperienced the advantage of that friendship in
the assistance which has enabled him to form a
i tavy nearly equal to that of a second-rate Euro-
pean power, and disciplined by British officers,
who occupy the principal commands in the ser-
vice. The navy of the Imaum commands the
whole trade of the Persian Gulf, while his merchant
v essels are—some of them—the finest that are to
la a met with in the Indian Seas. An old enemy
o f the Persians, the present expedition may so far
fi ‘vour his own political objects as to meet with
is is hearty approval on the question of prin-
ciple. The aid which he may afford to the
British expedition is of a very important kind.
T'ae city of Muscat and its neighbourhood abound
w ith provisions of every description, from whence
ti ie expedition may amply replenish the supplies of
it 5 commissariat. There are other important see-
vices which this Oriental patriarch will, no doubt,
be able and willing to render to the cause.
But, as announced, the proposed scene of mili-
lazy operations is far removed from the city of
Muscat and its resources, and the friendly co-
.operation of its liberal-minded inhabitants. The
sexpedition, it appears, proposes to attack Bushire
—a commercial town situated several hundred
-miles up the Gulf, and accessible only by perilous
:navigation. We confess that in the present state
of oar information we are more inclined to despair
-than hope for any great success from the opera-
tions of the expedition. A Government journal in
indicating the probable operations, mentions same
of the difficulties which may be encountered, but
conceals the inevitable dangers. We were glad to
hear for the first time that our Indian officers are
possessed of such accurate charts of the navigation,
.and hope the Admiralty may, without loss of time,
supply copies for the benefit of the merchant service.
But our contemporary omitted to state that the
town of Bushire is only accessible to small boats,
vessels of 300 tons being unable to approach nearer
than six miles to the town ; that numerous sand-
banks interrupt the navigation, which is otherwise
most dangerous, from the prevalence of furious
north-west and south-west winds ; that the climate
at certain seasons is fatal to European constitu-
tions, and that the water, which is bad, must be
carried in goat-skins a distance of sixteen miles.
The British expedition can at least cut off the
commerce maintained by Persia with the ports of
India and China, but is that commerce of such
magnitude that its destruction would be felt as
alchastisement by the Shah ? And if the semi-bar-
barous monarch cannot be brought to surrender by
this process, what are the next possible military
arrangements of the British Government for the
vindication of its honour and dignity?—Advertiser.