IRAK'S INDEPENDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 106, 5 May 1923, Page 7

IRAK'S INDEPENDENCE.

A BRITISH PROTOCOL. FOUR YEARS AFTER PEACE. LONDON, May 4. The Chancellor of '.he. Kxxliequcr (.Mr. Stanley Baldwin! announced in tne House oi Commons that Sir Percy Cox (British High Commissioner in .Mesopotamia) has published a protocol in Bagdad to the ofTeet that the present treaty between Britain and Irak will he terminated on the admission of Irak to the League of Nations or within four years of the conclusion of peace with Turkey, whichever is earlier.— (A. and X.Z. Cable.)

The British undertaking regarding Irak follows a "treaty of alliance.'" which was sicned at Bagdad in October liv Sir Percy Cox, the British Hijrh Commissioner for Mesopotamia, and Sir Seivid Abdur Balunan. the Prime Minister of the. Irak Government, acting for King Feisal. Cnder this treaty Irak was promised status as a regular nation with an opportunity of joining the League of Nations. Irak, however, remained under British tutelage, and promised that no officials, other than those of Irak nationality, would In: employed without British permission. It agreed to accept Britain's advice; in all financial and international matters. P.ritain promised to secure speedy delimitation of the nation's frontiers. When a stable government has been established and an organic law framed. Great Britain will help Irak get into the League of Nations, and the mandatory relationship now existing between Great Britain and this territory shall be terminated. Irak—or Mesopotamia, as it hns been known from Bihlical times—was made a British mandatory under the Treaty of Versailles.