CLEAR OUT OF IRAQ.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 244, 15 October 1925, Page 12

CLEAR OUT OF IRAQ.

THE FOUR-YEAR BLUFF. OCCUPATION ECONOMICALLY JUSTIFIABLE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, September 10. J Mosul is in the limelight again and opinion as divided as ever on its A T alue to the Empire. Mr. J. L. Garvin dubs the Mosul business another Chanak. During its first term of office the Baldwin Government reduced the British occupation of Iraq to four years of • which half have now run. Rushing to the other extreme, Mr. Amery now asks : for a reversal to a possible quarter of I a century. j This re-orientation of the Baldwin i policy, largely due to Mr. Amery, is the immediate result of the report made by the Commission which went I out to Iraq. Their repoTt was not I unanimous. None of their sugges- | tiona was ideal. Mr. Garvin's description of the report is, ''An extraordinary document, but as embarrassed as elaborate. They flinched from the plain duty they were expected to perform; they failed to award Mosul frankly either to one side or the other. The I Commissioners found in effect that the I region belongs to Turkey by right; but : for expediency and convenience should jbe mandated to Britain upon conditions that we bind ourselves to hold it and I all Mesopotamia for a further twentyI five years. As a way out this wonderI ful example of complicating a problem, ] instead of giving a straight verdict, j suggests that Britain and Turkey might arrive at an amicable partition. ;By that latter process, plausible at first • sight, the town of Mosul would go to i Turkey and so would the oil-fields. The Turke would have the oyster, we the shell!" He concludes that Ministerial policy in this matter is unwise, calamitous and likely to be repudiated by the nation after much mischief has been done. But Mr. Garvin in this matter is something of a pessimist. That serious Labour weekly the "New Statesman, 7 ' the last paper to be regarded as imperialist in reviewing the activities of the council of the League of Nations, says: "It is now thought probable that I the council will come down on the side lof the proposed compromise, in which the whole vilayet would remain a part of Irak under a British mandate extended for twenty-five years. This plan finds favour with the Iraqis, but it is not altogether satisfactory to us, for we are not anxious to tie ourselves up j for another quarter of a century. It is ludicrous to pretend that Imperialistic greed counsels us to hold on to Iraq at any cost. The one solid practical j argument for prolonging our mandate (is that it will make for peace and stability in the Middle East. If the Turkish objections can be overcome, this may be the best—and even the cheapest—way out of an awkward situation." The slogan, "Clear out of Iraq," which is the translation of Mr. Garvin's view Iby the newspapers given to flamboyant ] language, has been received with sur- | prise on the Continent, and we underI'staiid, in Geneva itself. According to ■ the Manchester "Guardian -, correspon- ' dent at Geneva: "The storm in the j English Press over Mosul is almost unintelligible here, at least 60 far as it is echoed by the telegrams. The issue before the council concerns solely the I northern frontier of Iraq, and not in ; the least the quite distinct question ■ whether or not we should remain in I Iraq. It is, in short, a question of the j eize and conformation of Iraq on the i map, and not at all one of the advisI ability of maintaining or not maintainj ing British influence in the Euphrates I Valley, a question that will be disI cussed on its merits before British j opinion, but jiot here, and certainly not jon the issue of attachment or nonattachment of Mosul to the Iraq kingdom. The memorandum issued yesterday by the Turks on the disputed question of Mosul itself puts forward nothing new. Its desire for a plebiscite—a suggestion turned down by the Commission on the score of the illiteracy of the ' tribesmen —is largely'discounted by the League's experience in areas containing settled civilised populations. The naive proposal of the Turks is that the tribesmen should be asked, "Under which Flag," and made to choose 'between the Union Jack or the Crescent, using flags as voting counters. The cry clear but of Iraq is based on the anticipation that Iraq will "cost ius more" when if has already cost too ' much. Mr. Amery strongly denies that expenditure will rise—even on the military side. It will require only a few flying squadrons, which, in all pro-l> ability, would be required in the East even if we relinquished Iraq. On the economic correctness of his view he was emphatic. "Our expenditure in Iraq iis rapidly diminishing to zero. The country already covers its own administrative ■ and civil expenses completely. Add the rich, populous wheat-growing,, and probably the oil country of Mosul and Iraq, with its enormously enlarged taxable capacity, would almost at once become self-supporting. Given our presence in Iraq, the British taxpayer," Mr. Amery argues, "stands to gain." He meets the reproach that the Tory Government was responsible for the four-year term. "That short limit of years was adopted merely for the purpose of stimulating Iraq Ministers to an effort which .they might not have otherwise made to put their country on its own feet, so that it could dispense with outside aid. The stimulus," he declares, "hae acted magnificently, as our diminishing subventions show! These four years, in short, were a kind of bluff. In fact, the preamble to the treaty speaks of an extension for an- ' other- twenty years." I ._