The proposed Anglo-Egyptian railway across the north of Arabia will join the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. To shorten the time of communication between England and her Eastern Empire is evidently a matter of the highest importance, not only for commerce and post, but in the event of war, mutiny or other great emergency. The first surveys for this overland railway were made as early as 1850, by the Euphrates Expedition under General Chesney. The scheme was warmly advocated in England by Sir W. P. Andrew, the Duke of Sutherland and others, but although it still awaits execution the plan comes up again every few years with new advocates and new improvements. Once it was to be the Euphrates Valley railway coming down to Bagdad and Busrah or to Kuweit (Grane) by way of Mosul. Now the plan proposed is to open a railway from Port Said due eastward across the Peninsula along the thirtieth parallel of latitude to Busrah. A branch would deviate a little to the south to the port of Kuweit which was also the proposed terminus of the Euphrates Valley line on which a select committee of the House of Commons sat twenty-five years ago. From Busrah the main line would cross the Shatt-el-Arab and the Karun by swing-bridges and follow the coast-line of the Persian Gulf and Makran to Kerachi. Such a line would reduce the time occupied in transit between London and Kerachi to eight days.[77] Whether this route or any other is followed is a matter of minor importance. The fact that since 1874 England has been to the front in the matter of the overland railroad puts it beyond a doubt, that when the railway is built its terminus at least will be under English control and most probably the whole road will represent English capital and enterprise. Meanwhile there is intelligence that Turkey has made a concession to German capitalists for the extension of the Anatolian railways to Bagdad. The line which runs from the Asiatic shores of the Bosphorus to Angora is in the hands of a German syndicate and the terms of the concession contain compulsory clauses under which, in certain eventualities, the Turkish government can compel the syndicate to extend the road to Sivas and ultimately to Bagdad.[78] But politically Great Britain has little to fear from the spread of German influence in the Levant and Mesopotamia. The editor of an influential English paper says, “Every mark expended by the Germans upon public works in the Asiatic dominions of the Sultan helps to build up the bulwark against the menace of Russia. And the creation of a German railway in Asia Minor will, in a limited degree tend to identify the interests of Germany and Great Britain.” Nevertheless England would never grant a terminus or harbor to a German railroad syndicate on the Persian Gulf.