The Motivation Behind the Scheme: The Committee's Out-Letters

Description:Documents in the Sutherland Collection indicate that the motivation behind the scheme’s establishment, and the Committee’s aim in constructing the railway, were both commercial and political. Indeed, the commercial incentive of ‘developing the resources’ of Turkey and the political aims of promoting ‘good governance’ and ‘uniting our interests’ with Turkey were intertwined, associating the scheme directly with the expansion of Britain’s empire in the later nineteenth century.

The Committee’s out-letters provide a detailed context to the motives behind the scheme’s establishment. In a letter to Sir Austin H. Layard at the British Embassy in Constantinople the Duke of Sutherland outlines the purpose of the scheme, suggesting that Asia ‘only requires the application of modern science’ to make full advantage of it, to ‘draw forth the latent resources of the soil and by creating new markets for our home manufactures…commerce infusing new life into Turkey by European emigration, capital and enterprise drawing India at the same time nearer to the centre of our power’. Again, the commercial advantages for England are emphasised alongside the political advantages of increased control over India.