ملف رقم ١٢٨٣\١٩١٣ الجزء ٥ "التجارة في بلاد الرافدين، إصدار تقرير تجارة جديد" [و‎‎٩‎٣] (٢٧٠/١٨١)

divided into nine heads dealing respectively with geography, agriculture, mills
and factories, native industries, currency and exchange, trade methods, customs
administration, foreign competition and communications. The British occu
pation of Mesopotamia has enabled a great deal of fresh information to be
collected in regard to its geographical characteristics. But this will doubtless
be made available in other publications, and it is unnecessary to add anything
in this report to the general description given by Mr. Lloyd. There is nothing
new to be said under the heads of “ mills and factories ” or “ native industries"
and the problems connected with the Turkish customs administration and
Turkish currency have, of course, entirely disappeared from ^ view in conse
quence of the British occupation. Agriculture will be dealt with separately.
Mr. Lloyd’s conclusions under the remaining heads of trade methods,
foreign competition and communications, so far as they have a bearing on the
conditions and prospects of British trade in Mesopotamia after the war, have
been analysed for convenient reference in an Appendix to this report. Briefly
speaking, his conclusions were as follows.
The total foreign trade of Basrah in the year 1906 was <£3,155,000. Of
See Appendix I.
the imports, which were £1,511,000, eSfofmcefs
about three-quarters went to Baghdad, achieved.
British imports into Basrah and Baghdad were chiefly cotton goods and twist
and hardware. Of the exports, which were £1,641,000, the most important
were dates, grain, horses, liquorice, opium and wool. A very large proportion
of the exports went to England and India. Germany was the chief competitor
and German trade was being rapidly built up in a great variety of articles,
especially hardware, while German ships were beginning to secure the transport
of Austrian, Belgian and French sugar which had previously been in British
hands. Mr. Lloyd attributed the German success to the fact that they studied
and supplied the demand for cheap, low quality goods and were able to offer-
lower rates of freight by German ships than British merchants could by
British lines. German merchants studied the natives, their language, habits,
etc., more closely than British merchants did and made a point of acquiring
personal acquaintance with their customers which enabled them to offer
with safety longer credits than their rivals could do with safety and
profit. British merchants were satisfied with the snug businesses which they
possessed and had fallen into the habit of basing their trading on Manchester
goods alone. Mr. Lloyd advised British merchants to aim at more general
trading and he also offered suggestions as to improvement in methods and for
extension of British enterprise in particular directions. British merchants
did not by any means endorse all Mr. Lloyd’s conclusions and, anyhow, little
or nothing was done.
11. Mr. Lloyd visited Mesopotamia again in 1916 and his later inquiries
led him to the belief that British trade had suffered rapid delay in the interval.
Inroads had been made, in his opinion, not only into the subsidiary ^ trades in
which British energies were occupied but also into the staple industries,
especially Manchester goods, iron and steel, etc., which were regarded as the
impregnable fortresses of the British trade position. Mr. Lloyd pointed out
that in the short space of ten years, the Germans had succeeded in wresting
practically the whole of the sugar traffic, formerly exclusively in British
hands, from the British lines, and were making serious attacks upon much
of the general traffic formerly emanating from Great Britain. Mr. Lloyd
described in detail the “through rate system” which worked in conjunc
tion with rate agreements, was the chief weapon of German competitive
policy, and he summed up his argument by saying that the activities at Lie
Germans in the past few years had had the result of ruining and jeopardis
ing the British position in Mesopotamia and on the river waterways which
carried the British Central Persian trade.
Mr Lloyd’s conclusions in regard to Mesopotamia are mainly based
upon the fact that the German tonnage entering Basrah in 1913 amounted
to 55 140 as against 30,948 in 1912, while German returns showed imports
as valued at £1,957,489 in 1913 as compared with £528,415 m i912.
There is no means of checking the German figures of imports, but a consi
derable fraction of the total probably represented material tor the Baghdad