THE NEAR EASTERN RIDDLE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18641, 23 February 1924, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE NEAR EASTERN RIDDLE

PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS. Most of. us have enough of the child in us still to prefer, at any rate, our statistical and political pills disguised with the jam of literary" interest, and for one who would have the patience to wade through blue books and official reports dealing with the Near East there are a hundred who would gladly assimilate the facts when presented in such a palatable form as we find them in " By Camel and Car to the Peacock Throne."i (John Long, Ltd.), written by an 'American army, officer, Major E. A. Powell* The book, as its rather cumbrous title suggests, is the reoord of a journey taken by the author and two friends (both sportsmen, and keen for anything in the shape of adventure), from Beirut, on the Levantine coast across the Syrian desert to Baghdad and thence to the Persian .capital, Tehran (the author's spelling) where the travellers were privileged to see the wonderful . Peacock Throne, a glittering, scintillating mass of precious stones andwhich is rarer, in the East a very beautiful work of art. Of special interest to New Zealanders is the fact that the first stage of the journey, from Beirut to Jerusalem was accomplished in motors belonging to a regular ' service, ' operated, strangely enough, by " a young New.* Zealander, a former aviator, who came to the Holy Land with the Anzacs and recognising the

commercial opportunities which the country offered remained on after the war." If it were nothing more than a story of travel, a chronicle of a glorified Cook s tour "in the chariot-ruts of History" the book would be well worth reading, with its first-hand accounts of the miseries of camel riding, of encounters with fierce and hostile Bedouins, of the curious beehive villages of the Upper Euphrates, and of interesting interviews with shah and sheik, emir and king. A Political Chessboard. But the book has a far more serious side. No one who reads it can fail to appreciate the importance of the political questions involved in the French mandate over Syria, the Zionist problem in Palestine, the control of the Persian oil-fields, and, above all (because inter-penetrating all), the ever-growing power of Islam. Kipling's dictum of " East and West " does not apply to international politics, for if we would understand, for instance, the attitude of Britain and France vto one ■ another to-day, we must seek the key, not in Europe, but in Asia. It is a far cry, as the author remarks, from the Tigris to the Ruhr, but it* cannot be denied that the happenings ■on the one have had their repercussion in the other.. Had England not placed an obscure Arab prince, an avowed enemy of France, on the throne of Iraq (.Mesopotamia), thereby menacing French rule in Syria, France would not have concluded Ja treaty with the Turkish Nationalists. And if France had not thus abandoned her former ally, leaving her to oppose the advance of the victorious _ Turks alone, it is a reasonable supposition that England's attitude towards the French occupation of the Ruhr would have been different.

Major Powell's remarks .on British diplomacy in Iraq and in Persia arc not pleasant reading . for loyal members of the British Empire, but he gives chapter and verse for his statements, and there is nothing to be gained by burying our heads in the sand of pseudo-patriot-ism and refusing to acknowledge the dangers created for Britain by the loss of prestige among the confused welter of tribes and ' nationalities united by the powerful bond of a common religion. It only remains to be mentioned that in recognition of his " services in placing the truth about Persia before the world" the author has had conferred upon him by the Shah of Persia the Grand Cross of the Order of the Lion and the Sun. ' "We understand," drily adds the publisher's announcement, " that the AngloPersian Oil Company has not offered the major anything at all."