Varna Rustschuk line

The line in question did not prove a financial success, and there were any number of disputes between the English company and the Porte. By the Treaty of Berlin, Bulgaria was compelled to take over all the liabilities contracted by the Ottoman Government in respect of this unfortunate railway. After protracted negotiations the Varna-Rustschuk line became the property of the State at a cost of £1,876,000, which was raised by a six per cent. State loan ; so that, taking into account the price at which the bonds given in exchange for the loan were issued and the cost of commission, the purchase must have cost Bulgaria not far short of £2,000,000.

As the line is only a hundred and forty miles in length, it follows that it was bought at the average price of £14,000 a mile; not a bad price for a line which up to then had barely paid its working expenses. I am well aware that there were large arrears claimed by the company in respect of payments which were said to be due from Turkey and to be in default. I have no reason to assert that the arrangement was an unfair one for either side under the circumstances. Still it is only just to the Bulgarians to record the fact that some two- fifths of her small public debt is due to the enforced purchase of a line owned by a foreign company, and sold by them under a forced sale at a price very considerably above its marketable value.

Turkey Austria Servia and Bulgaria

By the Railway Convention, concluded at Vienna in 1888, between Turkey, Austria, Servia, and Bulgaria, the last-named State agreed to construct the Zaribrod-Vakarel Railway, which formed the final connecting link in the direct line between Constantinople and Vienna. This line was completed in 1889, at a cost of £1,200,000, which was provided for by a fresh loan of like amount Unlike the Vama-Rustschuk Railway, the last-named line was of immense service to Bulgaria, as it placed her in direct communication with Western Europe, and above all with Austria.