Arizona republican., 1900-08-03
MADE FREE BY NEW RAILROAD
When Uganda Railroad is Completed
 There Will be Less Slavery

There will be less slavery, less suf- fering, less mortality in Central Afri- ca, when the Uganda railway is com pleted. It is to connect the port of Mombasa, on the Indian ocean, with Lake Victoria Nyanza, that great in the unnavigable Nile.
 Already it is constructed in the ope- ration as far as the plateau of Kikuyu, that Central African Eden, where En- glish vegetables and fruits flourish and English babies grow fat and strong. It yet remains to build 22O miles to the lake, and for this purpose the British parliament is asked to vote SIG. OO0,OOO in addition to the S15,OOO,OOO already dedicated to the new enterprise, un- expected engineering difficulties hay ing increased the estimate.
 The cost is cheap when the humani- tarian benefits are considered. It will do away with the infamous system of porterage, which, however disguised and however employed by Christian missionaries, represents slavery in it's worst form.
 Covering this feature of the question, an English writer says: Tt does not need a keenly imaginative mind to re- alize the hideous suffering involved in the conveying of heavy goods 50 miles on the shoulders or heads of human be- ings. The men engaged in this work were in reality slaves. They started from a coast bathed in moist, tropical rrIl- I march across a waterless desert. Next they had 10 thread their way through miles of thick jungle; then to toll over mountain passes 5000 feet higher than any summit in the British Isles, and clad in thin cotton had to sleep without shelter through the bitterly cold nights. Then came the long descent through the fever haunted jungles to the great lake.
 ''Is it surprising that many of the men who started on this terrible six months journey to Uganda and back never saw their homes again and that the pace could only be kept up by the free use of the whip? Is it surprising that the slave trade flourished in East Africa when there was a constant de- mand by merchants, by missionaries ' for their deadly Journey.
 If the railway had done nothing more than remove this wrong and mis- cry it would be worth the money that is being spent upon It.
 From a commercial point of view the reform is very marked. Carriage by the railway over the sections construc- ted costs about cents per ton per mile and takes a few hours; human portage cost about S1.75 cents per ton per mile and took about six weeks. Up to the end of 1899 the railway carried for the protectorate government 4,900 tons of stores at a cost of S155,O0O. If these stores had been carried by porters the cost would have been $1,470 900.
 Thus the British authorities have all ready saved more than $1,00o, 900 against the cost of the railroad, and this fact will be quoted to influence parliament in favor of the additional grant asked for.
 The Uganda railway travels about as difficult country as a railway has ev- CT pierced. In the earlier sections the ground Is intersected with deep Assures which have to be bridged and yet for nearly POO miles the trains have to car ny their own water and water for the coolies and water for the permanent railway staff.
 When this belt is crossed the noun tains begin, and the line has to wind its way up to a height of 5000 feet above the sea level. From that height therr is a steep descent down into the great drift, fifty miles across hilly ground. On the other side there is an equally steep ascent.