Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1933. A NEW STATE AND ITS TROUBLES

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 42, 18 August 1933, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1933. A NEW STATE AND ITS TROUBLES

The happy event which was consummated by the League of Nations Assembly at its Thirteenth Scpsion was dwarfed and overshadowed by ihe disaster which was threatened by an event associated with the previous { ,day. On October 2 the publication of the Lytlon Commission's report on Manchuria foretold the withdrawal of Japan from the League. In comparison with this grievous blow, the birth of a new nation which took place on the following day when Irak' was by a unanimous vote admitted to the League inevitably failed to attract the attention that it deserved. It was an event both of great historical interest and of great intrinsic importance, upon which the League and especially Britain were entitled to congratulation almost equally with the new State ■ itself. The admission of Irak to the League meant the termination of the Mandate under which Britain had been administering the country .since the War, and it was through" Irer administration, her education, and her encouragement that the .financial and other foundations of an efficient government were laid in ihe country,, and the inhabitants prepared for undertaking the responsibility themselves. • In his cordial welcome to the new member (M. Polilis), the President of the-'Assembly did full justice to the efficient and disinterested service by which Britain had qualified Irak for independence. After centuries of foreign domination, he said, Irak has finally recovered her liberty.. ,' ; Jlencef orth she will be bound only by that obedience which is common to us all, which is obedience to international law. ~ Great. Britain has once more given1 the world a striking proof of her liberality and her capacity for political administration. The civilising work which she/has been carrying out in the most distant parts of the world shows that she has always guaranteed order and prosperity and at the same timo encouraged liberty and development. , f It was not for Sir John Simon to speak in this vein, but in clearing the League and its founders of the charge of hypocrisy in the establishment and administration of ; the: Mandatory system he incidentally cleared his own country also. The moment was historic, he said, because Irak was the first State to emerge from the Mandatory regime. When that regime was instituted there were not wanting critics and cynics who1, hinted that the whole Mandatory-ays-, tern had been devised merely as a cloak for colonisation and annexation. Tlie admission of Irak to the League was a sufficiently emphatic answer. As Britain is the great predatory arid piratical Power whose immense; territorial gains froimthe War millions of Americans have been pleased to contrast with the disinterestedness pi their own country, one would like to know how much discount they have allowed on account of the 140,000 square miles of Mesopotamian territory which she voluntarily abandoned on October 3. The chances are that the original estimates, in which i Mandated territory was, of course, included as misappropriated freehold, still stand. • ■ • ' ... The fact is that if Britain is open to any reasonable censure at all inrespect of the duration; of. her Mesopotamian Mandate, she was wrong not in taking charge of the territory or in holding it so long, but in abandoning it too soon. Adapting and reversing the terms of Malcolm's compliment to the thane of Cawdor, it might be plausibly argued that nothing in her administration of the territory became her less than the leaving it. The period of the trust was not fixed by the League of Nations. Like all other terms of the Mandate, it was'fixed by Britain herself in agreement with Irak. The treaty which they signed oh October 10, 1922, covered a period of 20 years, and subject to a modification made some sis months later it was confirmed'by the-League of Nations. By a subsequent modification, which was ratified on March 30, 1926, the period was extended to 25 years from December 16, 1925, unless in the meantime Irak should be admitted to membership of the League of Nations. In 1927. another change was made, whereby Irak was formally recognised as an independent State, and Britain agreed that* if the recent rate of progress were maintained she would support the candidature of-Irak for admission to the League. By what surely must have been - the last of these treaties an alliance was made in 1930 on the basis of complete sovereignty and independence -to take effect on the admission of Irak to the League.

Discussing the problems of an "Independent Irak" in the May number of the "Contemporary Review," Mr. Richard Coke puts the question, "Has the new State a good chance of survival?" and he admits that on I this fundamental point "opinions are sharply and evenly divided." In one respect Irak started from' "scratch" on October 3 with an advantage which entitled her to the envy of the world. She had, Mr. Coke says, "no

national debt," and her share of the pre-war Ottoman debt had been re- . duced to £150,000. Britain had, of . course, written off sums duo lo her ■ under the original agreement in payment for public Avorks executed in ■ wartime. Equally, of course, lkiluin was saving the new Stale from tiny actual money payment: on its railways by accepting slock in v new joint railway corporation in lieu <>l cash. Its resources in land; oil, nml water rights are of imnionso viihit?, and'an allocation of even a portion of the oil royalties to apxiculUiral, development would tap "lite groal reserve of wealth which made Mesopotamia for centuries one of the centres of civilisation." But against these solid assets there is a serious ,?cl-ofl. Many exporicnocHl obsprvors—lvitkin as wol'l as Europoiins—beliovo, sjivn .Mr. Coico, that the. country ennuot, exist jn its '.■.present forhi without British or other outside aid. Thoy argue;that modern Irak is mi entirely artificial creation; ■ tluat there in no proof of any general fooling oi" loyally towards the kingdom nniong its people; that the latter are divided into nu-.iul and religious groups. which, in (net, attract their allegiance, far .more successfully; that the , withdrnwiil oi! British * eoirtrol will moan.-: in practice the administration of the -.country by Ibcnl elements, whwh tiro', self-seeking, of' low ideate, find limited politic;)l experience; and that the quarrelsome but lackadaisical inhabitant of tho plain?; will, onoo outsido intervention is removed, always be at tho mercy of the more virile niountaineors, particularly the Kurds and' Assyrians, . . . They bclievo that tho Irak army is wholly incapable of putting up a (iglif against internal disorder, "even supposing that its loyalty woro completely to lie relied upon. It is lo these-srrcat handicaps, and especially to racial and religious divisions and the weakness of the Irak army—a point which figured prominently in the recent treaty negotiations —that attention is drawn by the painful news which interrupted another of Mr. Mac Donald's much-needed holidays a few days ago and brought him back-.post-haste to-London.