THE CROSSWAYS

Evening Post, Issue 25, 30 January 1935, Page 21

THE CROSSWAYS

EUROPE TO ASIA

A MODERN ALEXANDER

HOW HE WOULD CONQUER

In* Irak, Palestine, and Arabia new economic-military links between.. East and West are being..forged,, along which. linea of communication Europe- may one day conquer Asia (or vice versa). An[cient history, repeating itself. ■ with 'modern' techniquel,.finds a new medium', the air; but air power means oil .power, and the Haifa oll;pipe line may '.prove to be an outstanding strategic development, ; writes the '' Sydney Morning Herald."

Vast changes are coming ovier Western Asia as well. as. Eastern, and one of them is exemplified in the opening of the British oil-pipe- line from. Kirkuk* , to Haifa. Our cable messages announced last Monday that a 1 Imperial Airways liner had' been chartered by Anglo-Persian oil directors to convey a party of guests to Kirlruk, where the King of Irak will today perform, the opening ea-emony. Developments here have proceeded apace: since 1931. In January of that year, Sir John Cadman, of the Anglo-Persian Cil Company, negotiated with Irak an agreement for the laying of oil-pipes across tho desert from Kirkuk to Haifa, The Irak Petroleum Company was . .formed to carry out the enterprise. It , contracted to produce at least two million tons of oil annually and to pay a yearly royalty of £400,000 gold ta tho Irak Government. Late in 1932, the work of laying the1 pipes was ready to begin from Haifa aud! Kirkuk: simultaneously. Recently, it was completed. The pipe line runs from the oilfields near Kirkuk across, the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers to. tho Rutbah wells ' nit the Syrian desert, whence it separates into two branches ; the- main branch goes on to Haifa carrying the bulk of the1 supply, and' the othei will take the balance of the 2,000,C00' tons, to Tripoli in French Syria. Haifa, on the Pale&tino seaboard, has leapt into importance as the chief mod'ern trading centre .of the; Levant, with tha completion there in November^ 1933, of the new harbour, at a cost of £1,250,000. The enterprise was nom- ■ inally that o£ the Palestine authorities; but British capital provided the loan money a>nd British engineers did the work. The Imperial air service, of course, follows much the same loute between i Gaza and Bagdad—the route pioneered originally by the Royal Air Force, 'whoso aeroplanes and motor transport have here made a double highway across the desert. Now a permanent pipe-line has followed • the. machines whose fuel it supplies. A fourth transport, service is. to come, for a railway is to accompany tho pipe-line, and' will' link Bagdad with Haifa. Thus havethe results of tho Gieat War tame*, the original German Bagdad^ railway 'scheme- to a new purpose and! oriental- , (ioi^. Nowhere did the pre-war AirgloGcrman rivalry find sharper expression than in the struggle for command of this vital region of "'the Near East.'" British interests in Persia, used to bo confined to the th-warting of a Russian approach towards India. But the Anglo-German naval competition at '] t-wenty-ftve years ago produced from j tho Admiralty the demand for extra manoeuvring- speed in the battle-craiser van. of the British Fleet; pursuit of those extra knots in speed inspired the Chmchill-Fisher policy of oil-burning engines; and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's concession, a romance in itself, was the outcome. Tho German j Bagdad' railway project ofTmed a diiect collision with those new British interests. Development of flying during tho , war, 'and still mora after the war., enhanced the importance to Britain! of an assured petroleum supply. Whether or not oil-firing in navnl engine* has1 como to stay—and many Britisb nava.l ' officers argue that the Navy should reTert to coal, at least aa auxiliary firing against emergency—tb« oil supply from the. eastern Mediterranean is essential for British, air servicea. The new ■ method of reticulating' the crude, oil to , a Mediterranean'port under British control is tha response to demand for assurance of an. increased supply.

Economically the- pipe-line i» designed to- save time Over the extra sea journey front Basra in the Persian Gullf, hitherto the Chief depot, an* the cost of dues through the Suez Canal. Already oil tankers ha-ve been carrying i oil from tho Persian Gulf around the Cape to avoid tha Canal dues. Britain' will now be able to use either Cape or Mediterranean route and avoid the Canal. Haifa is *ot tho only new strategical connection. A second desert railway is being planned t» run from Koweit, the British port opposite- Basra at the head of the Persian Gulf, across the Arabian T*esert to Akaba, at the top end of tho Bed Sea; and Akaba is also a port assuming- increasing importance. These new connections by rail between Egypt and India, reinforcing those of sea and air, indicate the immense effort by Britain to build up her defence communications with India,and Singapore. Egypt and Palestine JIEC now the Empire's central strategical base. Some naval crities in England have recently expressed fears for the. security of Britain,'" Mediterranean route with the- growth of French and Italian naval and air forces. Thrse critics complain that tho oil-fuel -policy has tied the Admiralty to a Mediterranean strategy.