File 36/1919 Pt 3 ‘KURDISTAN POLICY & SITUATION’ [‎216r] (450/608)

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Minute Paper.
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Department.
MESOPOTAMIA,
The next subject of interrogation is Mesopotamia, j
Here I must say I was not in agreement with my i
rio-ht lion, friend. As I understand it, his view' is !
that we should confine our effective supervision to
the province of Basrah, and that we should prac
tically abandon any attempt to supervise the pro
vinces of Baghdad and Mosul. I think it would be
a mistake to' abandon those territories, Basrah un
doubtedly is a fairly well cultivated province, i
but it has not the resources of the country |
hio-ber up the river. You might abandon the }
country altogether—that I could understand, j
But I cannot understand withdrawing partly, j
and withdrawing from the more important ;
and the more promising part of Mesopotamia. |
Mosul is a country with great possibilities. It has j
rich oil deposits, and if you are going to undertake j
the expense of administering Mesopotamia it is right I
at any rate that the country should bear the expense, i
They were misgoverned. This was one of the richest
countries in the world. What is it now ? It is a
wilderness. It contains some of the richest natural
resources of any country in the world. It maintains
a population now of a little over 2 , 000 , 000 . It wjts
the home at one time of one of the great empires of
the world. Is it not for the benefit of the people of
th a t country that it should be so governed its to enable
the population to develop this land which has been
withered and shrivelled up by oppression ? Does
anv one imagine if we 'withdrew that there would
be'anv improvement at all ? In the first place, if
we d ; d not undertake the task perhaps some other
country would, and unless some country undertakes
the task Mesopotamia would be exactly where she
is to-dav or probably much worse. I say that after
incurring the enormous expenditure which we have
incurred in freeing this country from the withering
despotism of the Turk to hand it back to anarchy ,
and confusion and to take no responsibility for its
development would be an act of folly quite in
defensible. (Cheers.) You have not got there the
material at present for forming a cohesive Govern
ment. You have a considerable number of tribes
owniinr no allegiance to each other or to anybody
else except the Turk, and if the Turk disappears
unless you constitute some central Government there
the country would be in a state of civil war and
strife and confusion. If you take away the only
central Government they have, you must put another
in its place. They have been consulted about their
wishes in this respect, and I think almost without ex
ception they are anxious that we should stay there,
though they are very divided as to the kind of inde
pendent Government they would like.
It is not proposed that we should govern this
country as if it were an integral part of the British
Empire making its laws. Our point of view is that
they should govern themselves and that tire British
Empire should be responsible as mandatory for
advising, counselling, assisting. But the Government
must be Arab. That is a condition of the League of
Nations, and we mean to respect it. , We will
respect the solemn undertaking we entered into in
November, 1918, upon that subject, but it would be
fatal to attempt to do this unless some country
undertook the supreme responsibility of constituting
the Government and advising it. What other country
will undertake that responsibility except Great
Britain ? To hand it over to anyone else would be
contrary to the wishes of the Arab population
there. There are two things they are quite clear
about—first, they do not want Turkish rule again,
and, secondly, they want British supervision. We
have no right, however, to talk as if we were the
mandatory of Mesopotamia when the Treaty with
Turkey has not yet been signed- It is only on the
signing of that Treaty that the question of man
datories will be decided, but when that time comes
we shall certainly claim the right to be the man
datory power of Mesopotamia, including Mosul.
(Cheers.)
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