IRAK’S DEBT TO MINISTERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 April 1937, Page 10

IRAK’S DEBT TO MINISTERS

CAUSES OF PROSPERITY.

Ernest Main, “Daily Telegraph” Special Correspondent lately in the Middle East, writes: — Those who may have been wondering sipce last October what the upshot would be of the coup d’etat , in Baghdad have now had many of their doubt a ; resolved. ... •• The murder of Jafar Pasha alAskari and the Vanishing of his colleagues gave the pew Cabinet a bpd start as far aG' English public opinion was concerned, -for Jafar Paslia, since the war, had: enjoyed a remarkable popularity in London. It was, moreover, recalled that Bekir Sidky, the General who executed the coup, was responsible for the Assyrian massacres. in 1933 and that Hikmet Sulainian,. the new Priiife ...Minister, was Minister of Interior at that tragic time. • ' ... Now, however,' four months .after the-event,, it can be.said that the new cabinet shows every sign of makinggood. Business ill, Baghdad to-day is excellent, the bazaars see plenty of money circulating' and little political excitement. Basrah’s/date season was satisfactory, and the Irak Petroleum Company’s oil goes pumping through the pipe-line At a rate that gladdens the heart ,of every Iraki. / There is in Baghdad no immediate sign of any upsetting of this equilibrium. When I was. in Damascus on the occasion of the. funeral of the late Yassin Pasha and saw him laid to vest in a grave adjacent to the tomb of the great Saladin —also, if presentday frontiers had existed in those far-off times, to be counted as an Iraki —I had the opportunity of a talk with some of the exiled leaders. The younger men were fairly free in their comments, and they said unb tormly that before long they would be' back in the capital, from which they had been banished., A leading pan-Arab politician (not an Iraki) told me on the same occasion that whereas a counter coup d’etat was dot immediately likely, it would nevertheless come surprisingly; soon.

Looking at the situation,, however, from the Baghdad end, oue can say pretty .definitely that there is no sign of any upsetting of- tliei apple-cart. The new Government is firmly-in power, and as long as a clear understanding exists between Bbkir Sidky and flikmet Sulaiman, the Government \Vill at all times have hdliind. it’whatever force it may think necessary, j . POSITION OF ’ THE KING *’ i The conscription law, for example, seems to be working satisfactbrily and the calling-up of the children of rich men of my own acquaintance, goes to prove the even-handed-iiess of the old .system. Under the old conditions, these rich men would unquestionably have purchased exemption fot-itlieir sons. I know, for iitsltajice, of one case of a boy, recoiitly in a public school in England, who is serving as a private soldier, doing his service in the Iraki Army. This impartial application, of.the -v-ohs'eriptiondaw will long?way Towards’: steadying’.Opinion, among- the Shiahs/ Foremost', of thes-trouble on (he Middle Euphrates hah'been caused by the Shiahs’ unreadiness to pay .taxes: or to; submit to..any law. that, was not being uniformly applied -to the Sunni effendis in the towns. This was at the bottom of. the Shiah troubles which in former times confronted the Turks in Irak, it was at the bottom of the Holy Cities’ revolt against a British administration in 1920/aiid .it was at the bottom of the Middle Euphrates disturbances which would have flared up in 1933 had it not been for the Assyrian'crisis, and did; in fact, flare dp. in 1934 and 1935. * ■'■ > . .

’ There is, however, , a good deal of talk and a certain amount of uneasiness' about the position of tlie?King. King. Ghazi', .it.,will be remembered, succeeded as a very young man on the death of Mis . father in 1933. The late King Feisal during his eventful reign of 12 years, and particularly after Irak gained her ~ independence, maintained a political balance within the State based on the.fact that he was always bn good terms with the army leaders. This remained true even after the British advice stopped iii 1932/and it remained true after the young King’s accession-in so far as the Cabinet of “old hands”, remained in power. In particular, it-- remained trite- in I ,’the time of Jafar '•, Pasha al-Askarf, who from the . start. had been most popular witlf/the army, . The position to-day is! that -the Kingcan no longer, count upon the of the- army;- it is tlrq arm/ and the PQlitibians, and not the Palaceji that control the political permutations and combinations in Baghdad.' >

Here is the reason-Tor the now frequent visits of the Amir Abdullah and his son, the Crown Prince Talal, to Baghdad. In the old days when his brother Feisal was on the throne, the Amir ATKttfllaTi would journey across once every year or so to pay a State visit, after which he would return to his mountain capital, Amman. Siiice last October, however, not a moiith has passed without either the Amir Abdullah-'dr his son Talal making a "quick journey across by car to Baghdad; sometimes there has been more than one such visit in a month. When 1 was hi Amman I asked the Amir if he was , satisfied with the position in Irak.- He told me frankly and cordially that he was, that the young King was doing well, and that the new Ministry were a progressive set of men out for the good of the country, and he was revisiting Baghdad to make their closer acquaintance. But translating the courtesy of tlie Arabic speech into realities, it was (liiitc clear that there was some other reason. Inquiries in Baghdad reveal that the Amir and his son have been anxious about the position of their nephew and cousin. It is commonly stated in Baghdad that one of the reasons for the. coup d’etat last October was that Yassin Pasha was manoeuvriug himself into a dictatorship, which the loyal Irakis would not have at any price. It is whispered in the bazaar—and through the great echoing gallery of Arabia —that if Yassin Pasha were so manoeuvring, the object of the coup -d'etat may have been not so much to prevent as to forestall him.

MONEY TO SPEND. Oil developments in Irak are providing food for the utmost satisfaction. For the oil revenues arc pouring in. According to the 1931 agreement between the Irak Petroleum Company and the Irak Government, the royalties payable by the company amount to 4/- a ton on a minimum production of 2,000,000 tons for each of the first 20 years. Certain moneys were paid in advance, pending the construction of the pipe line, and these in so far as they represented advance royalties fall to be deducted.

The present production. passingthrough the line to the Mediterranean (including the bifurcation through the French line to Tripoli) is at the rate of 6,000,000 tons a year, equivalent to a revenue of £1,200,000. This is a great deal of money for a country like. Irak, where the average national revenue for the 10 years from 1920 to 1930 —a period of steady shrinkage — was less than. £4,000,000 sterling annually, with a Budget expenditure of about £3,500,000. Irak now has money to do things with, and a return is being made to the original intention— namely, that the oil revenues should be devoted solely to capital expenditure. From 1932 to 1935 the payments in respect of advance oil royalties were largely used to help in balancing the Budget, a practice which was criticised by the financial jurists, but was defended on the ground of national necessity. The oil revenues arc now being diverted to more “legitimate”, purposes, and great schemes of capital expenditure are in the air, to be financed from this source. A German expert has been hard at work during the Winter producing designs for a new town-planned Baghdad.

Those people, indeed, who have not seen the city for some years would be surprised to see what changes have taken place. It is, of course, not possible to do very much with the congested streets and alley-ways of the old town. But the west side of the Tigris is being developed into a very fine city, with open avenues radiating from the Maude Bridge and fine villas stringing themselves down by the river. At North Gate and South Gate also the open spaces designed in the British building schemes since the Armistice are being f -,, .-ther conserved, and it may be s.’.i' -iw that all the approaches to P - 4 are worthy of the great am -. >t city.

AIRPORT AND RAILWAY The airport is one of the finest in the East, although it bids fair to be out-shone by the new airport at Basrah, which has been moved from Shaiban (17 miles out in the desert) to Margil, on the Shatt-al-Arab, where, in one compact enclave, are the headquarters of the Port Directorate, of the British Flying Boat Squadron (No. 203 Squadron. R.A.F.). the power station and a large part of the British community.

Railway expansion, too, plays a

! large part in Irak’s new programme. The great driving force of Col. J. C. Ward, Director of Railways, and formerly Director of the Port Adminisi tration, has cut down expenses, in- | creased efficiency and seen a start i made with the linking up of the Iraki railway system with the Turkish line through Anatolia to the Bosporus. It should be noted in this regard that the new through line will run Baghdad-Baiji-Mosul and not Baghdad-Kirkuk-Mosul. in other words the line from Turkey will not touch the producing fields of the Irak Petroleum Co. Baghdad’s stations will be linked up by a new bridge—a much-needed reform. Hikmet Sulaiman is credited with designs for a 20-years’ plan for the regeneration and reconstruction of the country. Oil revenues ought to be increased within the next year or two, when Mosul Oilfields Ltd. starts its production. It may be that in the interval there will be political upsets, but the money is undoubtedly there, and no future Cabinet will be permitted to reduce the pace of the reconstruction efforts that have been initiated by the present Ministers. Neither Hikmet Sulaiman nor Bekir Sidky, who at the moment seems to be in unquestionable control, is likely to be led away into following any panArab will-o’-the-wisp. Their motto appears to be “Irak for the Irakis,’ and it must be conceded that not only have they made an excellent start, but they seem to have the nation be- ' hind them.