LEAGUE OF NATIONS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3428, 4 October 1932, Page 5

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

IRAQ GAINS INDEPENDENCE. BRITAIN CONGRATULATED. (Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 12.45 p.m.) London, October 3. The Press Association’s special Geneva correspondent states that most of the Assembly’s time to-day was occupied felicitating Iraq on her admittance to the League, most of the speakers, including representatives of Turkey and France Italy, congratulated Britain on her skill in bringing Iraq so quickly to a state of independence. Sir John Simon, in an effective speech, said Iraq’s arrival at nationhood after twelve years under a British mandate was the best answer to those cynics who hinted that the mandate was merely a cloak to hide Britain’s colonisation scheme and annexation. It is stated that Australia next year may seek election to the League Council. Mr. Mr. W. M. Hughes, in the absence of Mr. Bruce, conferred with the Parliamentary Foreign Secretary, Captain Eden, on the nationality of women. Mr. Hughes was instructed to adhere to the policy in which the principle is accepted that married women will not loose their nationality without their consent, provided the Imperial Dominions’ Governments agree to a similar action. (Iraq was taken from the Turks during the Great War by Great Britain, and was afterwards recognised as an independent State under the mandate of that country. In 1921, after a plebiscite, the British High Commissioner proclaimed Faisal as King, and in 1923 it was agreed that the British Mandate should lapse on the entry of Iraq to the League of Nations. Iraq has an area of 143,200 sq. miles and a population of 3,000,000.)