MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS 477 



The railway programme is not yet completed, but 

 the work done in the years 1906-10 nevertheless marks 

 a distinct stage in the history of development. 



Until the harbour and town of Port Sudan on the Red 

 Sea w r ere built and connected by railway with the interior, 

 the Sudan was for all practical commercial purposes a 

 land-locked country, debarred from foreign markets by 

 the difficulty and expense of its only outlet to the sea 

 via the Nile route to Egypt, a distance of some 1,400 

 miles over railways comprising three different gauges and 

 divided from one another by some 200 miles of river 

 transport. 



In 1910 the railway was extended along the Blue Nile, 

 and since then has been pushed on across the Gezira to 

 El Obeid, nearly 1,000 miles from Port Sudan. 



By means of its admirably equipped and well placed 

 harbour, the greater part of the Sudan now possesses 

 ready communication with Europe and the East. The 

 registered tonnage of steamers entering and leaving Port 

 Sudan in 1913 was 587,358 tons. 



This change in the economic situation may be signified 

 by stating that the country's economic interests have 

 ceased to be local and have assumed an international 

 character. 



When the railway opening up the Eastern Sudan via 

 Kassala, Gedaref, Mafaza and Sennar is built the main 

 links in the chain of railway connection will have been 

 forged. 



The third period, which follows by a course of normal 

 evolution upon those which preceded it, has just been 

 entered upon. Its first stage is marked by the inception 

 of the Gezira Canal project, whereby, in the fulness of 

 time, some millions of acres of land in the plain lying* 

 between the White and Blue Niles may be brought under 

 irrigation, mainly for purposes of cotton growing. 



It is not easy to find a name to fit this third period of 

 development without implying an undue differentiation 

 from that which it succeeds. It may be styled the period 

 of economic expansion, but it must not be inferred that 

 it is only within the last two or three years that measures 

 connoted by that term have received earnest attention. 



