Kansas City daily journal., 1897-01-14
The Grentest of Railroads.

FROM the New York Tribune.
AheFe Is a familiar story. perhaps less
apocrNphal than most good stories are. of
FORMER Russian emperor who wanted
iallrOau oullt from St Petersburg TO Mos
COW ne told his ministers, and they told
Ihe engineers. and they went to surveying
route after route, without finding a satis-
factory one. At last the emperor grew tired
OF waiting and asked why the railroad was
not oullt- The engineers cannot agree
upon a route was the reply. Bring me
a map. and I will show you one returned
the emperor. Then he took a ruler and a
pen, and drew straight line from one
city to the other. That is the route" said
he now build the road" And 1t was
built. A truthful companion to this story
may be told, dating back scarcely eleven
years. and at the present moment being
fulfilled. In 1886 the emperor summoned
his ministers 10 him. Without a word of
preface, Let there be a railroad built
across Siberia" he said: by the directest
route and as quickly as possible" And
then he dismissed the council.
To-day that railroad, incomparably the
greatest in the world making our Pacific
roads seem petty. is measurably near COM
pletion. 1t is finished and in full operation
10 point beyond Tomsk. at one end and
from Nladivostok to Chaborowsk, on the
Amoor, at the other while a considerable
stretch is at least graded. ready for the
ties and rails, in the middle, at Lake Bal
kal. No less than 5000 men are constantly
employed upon it, and it is reckoned that
by the end of the century four years
hence. through trains will be running from
the Baltic-indeed from Paris-to the Pa
chic. The cost is estimated at Sis, eco 600
but will probably be much less, since the
actual cost of the section from the JTraIs
ia hos hoo, 20 -Nnn
estimates Vladivostok. 4.I4l miles from
the Urals. will be one eastern terminal but
not the chief one. BY the terms of the new
Russian treaty with China, a branch line
so-called, is to be run Off at NikolokaSa
down through Manchuria and Mongolia
to the Yellow sea, with terminals at New
Chwang and Port Arthur where there will
be harbor open all the year round This
branch" will be 1,2SO miles long 946 miles
being in what is now Chinese territory and
1t will shorten the distance from the JTraIs
10 the coast by S42 miles. No doubt it will
really become the main line. as soon as
Manchuria and Corea become openly and
avowedly, as they are now substantially,
Russian provinces.
The practical effect of this stupendous
Undertaking upon Russian social and in
dustrial interests is already apparent In
1881 the present czar turned the first spade
fuI of earth on the road at Vladivostok
Forthwith. popular migration from Euro
pean Russia to Siberia began. In 1892 no
less than 100000 permanent settlers crossed
the Trails. But they were a mere advance
guard. A larger number was reported i'm
the single month of May. last year, while
the total number for 1896 was nearly I.OOO,-
coo. No other new country ever was filed
up at such rate At present nearly all
are settling west of the Obi. But as the
construction of the road proceeds and the
still more desirable regions farther east are
opened up the number of settlers may be
expected TO increase and by the end of the
century. when the road is completed, we
may reasonably expect TO see the popuIa-
tion of Siberia more than doubled. There
will be practically new nation, of 10.OOO,-
600 or 12,00Oe00 inhabitants. in one of the
richest lands of the world, with an incaI-
culable product of raw materials to dis
pose of, and with an almost inestimable
need of manufactured goods. And its nat
ural commercial outlet and inlet, on the
ocean, will be directly opposite the Pacific
coast of the United States. There is
fact which American traders and Ameri-
can statesmen may well take into consid-
GRAFTON.