Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-09-28
RAIL WAYS ARE THE ARTERIES 0F WAR
 IN MODERN TIMES
England and Canada Sent Engines, Rolling Stock,
 Ties and Rails to France,
Correspondence Associated Press)

(COffeSpOndence ASSOclaCed PreSS)
 London, Sept. 21.-The railway has been one of the primary instruments of war from the day war was declared, and it's usefulness has constantly in- creased with the increasing complex ity of wars activities. Even in the past four months, the tonnage land ed at French ports for the use of the British forces in France has increas- ed by more than two-thirds, and this all has to be transferred by rail from French docks to the front. .-
 Railways are the arteries of war. It was railway construction by the South African forces that made pos sible the conquest of German South west Africa, and again it was railway construction that rendered possible the recent operations in Egypt, in Mesopotamia and in East Africa. Sev- eral hundred miles of railways have
 been laid in the Sinai desert with the help of native Egyptian labor, while for Mesopotamia and East Africa the necessary material and personnel have been mainly derived from India. In Sinai, the line from Ell Kantara east ward has been extended in the course of six months, and the freight traffic passing over it has increased three fold.
 In France railway development has
 been most extensive. Enormous pro- vision of railway stores and plant for
 use in France has been made by Eng
 land during the three years of war.
 Rails, ties, plant and tools have been delivered in enormous quantities for
 use on the new strategic lines in the
 advanced areas as we'll as on the
 French railways forming the main
 lines of communication. For three years, rails by the mile, locomotives
 by the hundred, and cars by the thou
 sand have been pouring in a steady stream into France.
 About half of these locomotives and
 cars have been obtained from British
 railways as a result of the restrictions placed on traffic here. Assistance has
 also been rendered by Canada and the other dominions, and great quantities of new rolling stock has been special l ly constructed here and abroad for use on the continent. Hospital and armor- ed trains have been designed and built, and special railway mountings of unique design have been improvised for heavy siege artillery.
 In a recent dispatch, placed at the disposal of the Associated Press, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, cpmmander-in-chief of the British forces in France. described the work done upon the railways in France dur ing the past year, the success of which he says has been one of the contribu- tory causes of British military sue cess.
 "By the close of the campaign of 1916," he says, "the steady growth of our armies and rapid expansions of our material resources had taxed roads and railways to their utmost capacity. The existing broad gauge and narrow gauge railways being in- sufficient to deal with the increasing volume of traffic, an undue amount of transportation had to be done by road. As winter conditions set in the roads |deteriorated rapidly, and the difficult ties of maintaining and repairing them became almost overwhelming. In or der to relieve the roads, an increase of railway and light railway facilities be- came imperatively and urgently neces.. sary, and at later date the needs of CHc dIuly were COIloluCIdOly aug ed by the adoption of large program of new construction in the area from which the German armies had with drawn.
 "The task of providing additional
 rails. material and rolling stock was
 one of the great difficulty. The suc- cessful solution of the problem of rail
 way transport would have been inn possible had it not been for the pa triotism of the railway companies of
 Canada. They did not hesitate to give up the locomotives and rolling
 stock required to meet our needs, and even to tear up track in order to pro vide us with the necessary rails. The
 work of railway construction had to
 be carried out with the greatest rapid | ity, in order to admit of a resumption
 of the offensive in the spring, and at
 the same time the labor and material
 had to be found for the necessary re
 pair of roads,"