The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1919-01-25
Two Great Railway Projects.
Youth S Companion.

4 Outn 5 Com I)etil4oil.
We have heard much Of late years
: about the Z rIn-to- Bagdad railway
( It is trad" route that IS still OF great
i'm portance although the situation OF
it's northern terminus and the char
acter of its political control are not
likely to remain whore the an0luon
OF William IL placed them. With the
coming OF peace. the economic rena1s-
sance OF france and the cenaenHnS
Of cordial friendship between t@e
Latin ard the Slav allies. Two other
lines Of world trade ere Planned. one
20 run eastward aIlo the other soufh-
ward from the heart OF france.
One Of the ROADS finds its Atlantic
terminal at Bordeaux, and runs by
way OF Lyons. -Iont Cents, Turin, Mi
liam. Venice, Trieste Ag-am, Belgrade
and Bucharest to Odessa. That rail-
way is expected to tie France and
Italy commercially 70 Serbia, Rou-
mania and southern Issia; It Will
give the Southern SlavS. heretofore
shut off from any contact. with the
world except by way OF Austria and
| Germany, and consequently IN eco
nomic servitude to those countries dl-
recI. access not only to the Adriatic
Sea bat to the Atlantic Ocean; and it
will bring the wheat fields of the
Ukraine into close commercial cen
! tect with the industrial region OF
northern Italy anG TIE markets OF!
France. II will add enormously to the
economic well-heing Of both the Wes-
tern and the Eastern nations; it will
strengthen the inGependet POLITICAL
life Of the new Jugo-Slav state and
keep 1t in continual friendly contact
with the Western allies who have
helped it to win that independence.
The road will also connect at belgrade
with the road to Ccnstcntinople and
Bagdad, and will offer an alterna-
tive outlet to the commerce that
comes up thither from the Orient.
Such q railway system needs to be
organized a1l standardized rather
than built: for the w!lcle distance is
already covered with existing rail
ways, except for one section down the
Danube from Belgrade to Turna-Se-
verin aad another between Bucharest
and Reni.
The other project is a more re-
noarkablc one. It is, nothing less than
a read from Paris by way of Bor-
deaux, Madrid and Gibraltar to Mo-
rocco, the west coast OF Africa and
the port of Daka1 IN Senegal. The
pan includes q tunnel uncer the
Strait cf Gibraltar. which is more
than $500 feet deep. by means Of
branch lines the new route would
open a commercially promising coun-
try along the west coast; it could tap
the resources Of the Sudan and the
Congo. and even connect with the
proposed =CaDe-to-Cairo railway of the
British: and ct Dakar it would end at
the point in the Old World nearest
to the New World; for Cape Verde,
behind which lies the harhor Of Da-
kar. is only 100 miles from Per
nambuco IN Erazil
a rail line 20 g point within three
days sail of Rrazil would greatly
quicken commercial relations be-
tween Western F,urore and South
america. Paris v5ould i,c only sev-
en- DAYS from Rio de Janeiro, only
eight from Buenos Aires and only
ten from Santiago, Chile. Now it is
twice as far from all those places.
When the Channel tunnel is built,
London will be almost as near South
America as Faris is, and man could
so from either capital to Rio de
Janeiro in half the time he would
take in journeying thitl,er from New I
York. Apart from the tunnel under
tho Strait Of Gibraltar, which would
he a tremendous undertaking, the pro- +
iect offers no especial engineering
difficulty, and It promises results IN
encouraging the commercial growth
Of Africa and South America that
would bc we'll worth all it would cost.
IN Africa It would pass All the way
tnrous,h territory now under the own
ership or protection Of France, and i
would perhaps cause to arise on the
distant shores OF Senegal cne Of the
great commercial cities Of the
world
1t is interesting to observe also that
It would tend to draw more closely I
the bonds that unite Latin America
with Latin Europe, and to establish |
q belt of Latin political and CONNER
cial ascendancN stretching southwest
ward from Europe much more firmly |
founded and much more likely to en-
,lure than the artificial structure Of
Teuton;c military and economic pow
AZ that William II labored to erect
in the lands that lie to the southeast
werd.
Quarantine restrictions were impos-l
- v-.d,aedoy an Pf.kelev and New