, 1898-11-16
TIE RUSSIAN LINES OF MARCH
IN ASIA.
From the Times J


The railway advance Of Rnssi. through
Siberi, to China hns Of late lolIued a Ques-
lion of such practical politics as to diver. al e
tention from her not less important Gdvnnce
towar de India. TO many il will come as q
surprise that next month the Trans-Caspian
Railway will run Trains to he Afghan from.
tier, within 95 ensy miles Of Herat. But
those who have carefully WATCHED Russia's
railway development in Asia will recognize
in The completion Of the Megv KuShk line
merely one more stage in the gTent task
which Russia deliberately set herself after
the Crimean war. Checked in her attempt
at European extension senwa!da to t1le south
west, she launcheR her pent-rp forces against
the unOrganized and hlWost illimit"ble Hleas
of Asia. With i'll infrXible purpose to which
the English would Le@he FIRST nation t. accord
respect, the Ministers IF successive Isars
have not only TUNED the flank #. the old Q
Ea>tein question, but have Created a new
Eastern Umpire which imm"ns' ~ J crenscs
their influence in European atfniIs. Denied
for a time an outlet towards thes Mediterra-
mean, they have won an outlet on Tire China
Sea. Forty years Ago the vast Intermediate
ApAces might we'll appear to render such a
task imprAoticable, and useless alike for
political and mercantile purposes even it
It could be accomplished. Bul with tEo aid
of The railway, a resource unknown to the
Asia of 1854, Russia has made The task both
q practicable aud q fruitful one. AS We built
up our Asiatic dominiOns by the ccean-gOing
ship, so Russia has built p els by The iron
road, and during the last Az years her adj
vance represents, in one of it's aspects, The
struggle Of the railway against tea power.
Russia has now two great lines of railway
in Asia the northern one through Siberia,
within measurable distance o fcompletion to the
Manchurian conbt; and the southern one by
way of the Caspian, now opened to the heart of
Central Asia. The plan on which the two sys.
TENS have been laid out includes their juno
ton by a line from Omsk on the northern
route to Tushkend, The new cnpital of Rus
sian Central Asia, ON The southern railway.
The united resources Of north and south
Russia in Europe, and of the northern and
southern provinces Of Russia in Asia, will
thus be capable Of concelk ration eih"l 10,
wards China or on our il dian frontier.
Al present We deal only with the Indian
aspect of the que>tiuW. Lussin, while steadi
Iy pursuing her main obj+ct-namely,the m
soIidation % b" Kllahntts and principalltirs
OF Central Akin into provinces under her di.
rect rnle-hns known how to play Of her
Atiatic advance skiIfully against her Euro
pean rivals. Asst he complete conquest Of the
Caucasus and an accelerated Imptlse towards
Asiatic expansio" we've Rusria's replies 10 the
Crineam war If 1854, so our despatch Of In
dian troops to Malta and Cyprus was, after
1873, answered ly her complete snljug"tion
If The 1ekke Turc"mans, the occupation Of
Trans Caspian territory to Sarakhs and Merv,
and the extension of the railway to Samar-
kand. Russian ~diplomatists found they h"d
a double power of exercising pressure on
British policV-in Europe and II Afphanis-
ten. A few years later. when The boundary
from Zulfkar TO Kham-i-ab was. fixed, good
Englishmela at home rejoiced that Znl6kar
was retained for Afghanistan, unmindful that .
the Russians from their furthest stations be-
yond Kusnk were only some 60 miles from
Herat aud had no need of the longer route
Western AfghanistaIS{l 1t is this toute, Sia
Kushk, that the Russians finally decided to
make their frt line of sproach. Other al
tentative lines towards tee Hindu Kueh are