'Mesopotamia' [‎34v] (68/152)

o8
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
[No. 952
of navigation on the Tigris between Amara and Kurna.
Ihe total cost of the scheme was estimated at
£1.29,000,000/ and the plan was admitted to depend
commercially upon the construction of adequate rail
ways between Baghdad and Basra along the line of
the two rivers, and possibly of a further railway from
Mesopotamia across the Syrian Desert to one of the
Syrian ports on the Mediterranean; the cost of these
was not included in the scheme.
Recently Sir W. \\ illcocks" report has been subjected
to considerable criticism upon purely engineering
grounds; for instance, it is doubtful, having regard to
the enormous quantities of silt carried by the Tigris
and Euphrates when in Hood, whether his devices for
preventing floods w T ould be permanently successful. In
any case there are drawbacks to any scheme which
accepts as permanent the degeneration of the Lower
Euphrates, and is prepared to acquiesce in the aban
donment as an irreclaimable swamp of the large area
between Suk esh-Sheyukh and GurmatAli, which in the
past has been a prosperous and fertile agricultural dis
trict. Moreover, Sir W. Willcocks' scheme is open to
criticism on other grounds. First, it advocates the
reclamation by irrigation of enormous areas, for which
there is at present no agiricultural population, and
from which no return could be obtained for a very long
time. Secondly, it overlooks the political difficulties
to which the introduction of settlers would inevitably
give rise. Thirdly, there is no reason w r hy irrigation
and navigation should not be effectively combined, and.
indeed, be made mutually advantageous for a long time
to come.
Recently Sir George Buchanan has made a report on
the regeneration of the river systems of Mesopotamia,
which throws a great deal of light upon the condition
of the rivers to-day, and the possibilities of their
utilisation as waterways in the future. He states that
the difficulties of navigation on both the Tigris and
1 Turkish pounds. Normally the Turkish poimd = 18s.