مجموعة ٢٠/١٧(١) "المعاهدة الأنجلو-عراقية لسنة ١٩٣٠. مراجعة معاهدة ١٩٤٨" [و‎‎١‎٣‎٣] (٣٠٤/٢٦٥)

COP* OF
THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OP HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
EASTERN (Iraq).
April 3, 1933.
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 1.
[E 1724/105/93] No. 1.
Sir F. Humphrys to Sir John Simon.—(Received April 3.)
(No. 181.)
Bagdad, March 22, 1933.
WITH reference to my telegram No. 50 of the 20th March, I have the
honour to report the following further developments in the political situation
in Iraq.
2. On the morning of the 17th March the Bagdad press published reports
of a debate in the Chamber on the reply to the Speech from the Throne, which had
taken place on the previous day. From these I observed that Yasin Pasha and
others had made speeches in which they had urged the Government to endeavour
to obtain a revision of the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of Alliance of 1930. I enclose a
summary( l ) of the debate, compiled from newspaper reports, from which it will
be seen that the treaty was criticised as unjust and oppressive by reason of the
immense burden of debt which it laid on the shoulders of Iraq, and the foreign
forces and advisers which it imposed on the country.
3. Knowing the King's intention to form a new Cabinet and to appoint
Yasin Pasha as Minister for Finance, I felt it necessary to warn him of the
significance which would naturally be attached to such a change after this debate.
I therefore sought and obtained an immediate audience with His Majesty. The
following paragraphs summarise the main features of our conversation, which
lasted for more than three hours :—
4. I opened my remarks by recalling that in the several previous discussions
which we had recently had on the subject of His Majesty’s wish to form a new
Cabinet he had met my misgivings regarding the inclusion of Yasin Pasha by
assuring me that the latter’s hostility to the Treaty of Alliance of 1930 had arisen
solely from his personal differences with Nuri Pasha, and was not inspired by
any real objection to the principles or provisions of the treaty per se. His
Majesty had asked me to believe that these personal differences were a thing of
the past and that no one in public life had now the least desire to alter the bases
on which Anglo-Iraqi relations had been established by the treaty.
5. It had come, therefore, as a great surprise to me to see that, in the
debate on the Speech from the Throne, Yasin Pasha and several of his associates
had pressed the Government to seek an opportunity to amend the treaty, which
they had frankly described as oppressive and unjust and inconsistent with Iraq's
independence. I added that I felt it necessary to warn His Majesty that if, after
such a debate, Naji Beg’s Cabinet were to resign and a new Cabinet were formed
including Yasin Pasha, and others known to be largely under his influence, the
conclusion which would naturally and logically be drawn by His Majesty’s
Government and by the outside world was that the change of Government
indicated a change of policy towards Great Britain.
6. The King began his reply by suggesting that the reports which I had
seen of what Yasin Pasha had said in the Chamber the previous day were possibly
not altogether correct, and he produced a copy of the daily newspaper, the
Ikha-al- Wataui, in which the report of Yasin's speech omitted all mention of a
demand for the amendment of the treaty, and suggested that as this paper was
the official organ of the party of which Yasin Pasha was the leader, its version
of his speech should be accepted as authentic. I demonstrated the weakness of
this argument by showing the King that Yasin Pasha's strictures on the treaty
had been published in all other newspapers, two of whose editors were themselves
Deputies and had been present during the debate. Moreover, the Prime Minister,
who had spoken after Yasin Pasha, had defended the attitude of his Government
towards the treaty, and it would have been unnecessary for him to have done so
if Yasin Pasha had not attacked him on this point. King Feisal then abandoned
the suggestion that Yasin Pasha had been misreported, and went on to say that
p) Not printed.
[767 c—1]