ROADING IN IRAQ.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 29, 3 February 1934, Page 7

ROADING IN IRAQ.

LINK WITH PERSIA.

NEW ZEALANDER'S WORK. OLD CIVILISATIONS. Having spent four and a half years in an out-of-the-way corner of the earth makiiifr roads, a civi? engineer, a graduate of the University of New Zealand, returned yesterday afternoon by the Ruahinc. He was Mr. A. M. Hamilton, of Christcliurch, who has been in Iraq, making a road through the Zagios Mountains, in North Iraq, to Tabriz, the capital of Azerbaijan, in North Persia.

Mr. Hamilton said the road was ono section—some 120 miles through precipitous country—of a long route from the. Mediterranean to Persia. It was an important road, because it opened up - a part of Persia that hitherto had had access only from Russia. It cut across from the head of the River Tigris to Tabriz, and th'c idea was to bring trade into North Persia, rather as a counter to Russia.

Part of the mountains through which the road ran was of an oil-bearing nature, though the real oil country in Iraq was some hundreds of miles away, in the plains. A new pipe lin,e, six miles in length, at present Hearing completion, was intended to tap those fields, which were some of the richest in the world. Tho line ran from Kirkuk, in Iraq, to Haifa. Another branch went to Beirut, in Syria, over which France held tho mandate. The company controlling the fields'and the pipe line was known as I the Iraq Petroleum Company, and was composed of all the important oil companies in the world. The line would be in use, lie thought, in 1930. British Popular in Iraq. Though Iraq had been somewhat unsettled and unsafe for travellers lately, because of native risings, he said the work had never been retarded by any trouble of that nature. The people in tho mountains were the Kurds, fierce and warlike, but hospitable to their friends. While trouble had occurred in other parts of the country, he had gone unmolested to their villages by special Perhaps, he said, that was because he had gone out of his way to bring about amicable relations with the tribes. That had been the aim of the British in their period of mandate; and they had been most successful and very popular in Iraq.

The • country through which modern science was pushing a road was full of the ruins of citics and civilisations which were old when Britain was never dreamed of. Many expeditions were busy on archaeological work, notably at Horsa-' bad, which was part of the ancient Persian Empire. The famous, or rather imfamous Biblical city of Xineveli, to wl'fh Jonah was sent to preach, was being excavated, and many were the finds of important interest. "But," said Mr. Hamilton, "our particular work is for the future, not for the past."

Mr. Hamilton will spend a short holiday in Christchurch, after whieli he intends to. return to Engla w.