TO RECREATE CHALDEA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2855, 2 December 1908, Page 78

TO RECREATE CHALDEA.

SIR WILLIAM WILLCOCK'S AMAZ- ■ ING TASK. ' When the shriek of the steam engine echoes past Ur of the Chald-ecs and along the banks of the Euphrates, and the ' tiain traverse* the waste where N«buchadnezzar\« sway flourished, it iray indeed be • said tbnt ni'VJern civilisation has annexed the ciddU' oi the world's earliest life. That day has come nearer by a decision which has" just been made by the Turkish (Jovoinment to recreate Chaldea ; but the mind uhich will plan this great revival j m the morning lands of hittovy will be an English mmd — that of Sir William

* Willcocks, who has achieved such greafi things for Egyptian, irrigation. j " « '£"jj e Turkish. Government has engaged , Sir William- Willcocke to supervise the : contemplated irrigation and canalisation 1 works in Mesopotamia and elsewhere.* j The brief announcement by the pros>ic j Reuter is emblematical of the immense change which has been effected in Turkey by the revolution," says the Times oi ( India. [ — A life's Dream. — I " Some four years ago Sir William Will- ! oocks entranced an audience in Cairo by his description of the ancient irrigation works on the Tigris and the Euphra- , tes and his forecast of the possibilities , of reconstructing them on modern scientific principles. In the cold weather of 1905 Sir William visited Baghdad, and made a rough survey of the country, and upon his return to Bombay he gave enthusiastic estimates of the future of this ancient granary. Immediately upon his return to Europe Sir William eet himself to obtain from the Porte a concession for the works, but he was obstructed by the dominant influence of Germany/ and the Chauvinist German "newspapers were full of mutterinjgs against his efforts to anticipate tfie advent of the Baghdad railway. ** J — yistas Opened Up. — ! "As soon as the Yildiz Camarilla has; fallen Sir William has- secured his end I ,' and he will now be able to devote himself to the attainment of the dream of hda , life, which is the recreation of Ancient Chaldea. The magnitude of the schemes may be gauged from the fact that rough estimates place the irrigable area at nearly three mUlion acres, the expenditure at 2a. million pounds sterling, and the capital v,alu© of the land: when irrigatea at 60 million pounds. The possibilities opened 1 ' up ace vast. ' " That matter-of-fact statement carries the germs of possibilities which will transform the economic and political conditions of the MdddJe East, and', enormously increase the" trade prospects, of Bombay and Karachi," continues the- Times of India. " Indeed, it is difficult to write of the vistas opened' up by this decision in terms which dio not carry the stigma of exaggeration. In the diayo of fihe Assyrian and Sassanian kingdoms the d«lta of the Tigris and Euphrates was the granary, of the world. This alluvial plain, extending 400 miles inland from the present' - shores of the Persian Gulf, was celebrated for its fertility. 'Of all countries that wo know,' wrote Herodotus, 'there is none so fruitful in grain. It yields commonly; two- hundredfold, but when th» production is greatest, even three hundredfold", and the- blades' of wheat and bariey plants are often four fingers in breadth,' i — A Tragedy of History. — I "Nothing is more tragic in history than the sterilising of this fruitful garden. The ruins oft great cities?, stand in the desert, and a few Ajcaba only wander amongst the shapeless mounds that cover them, or shelter under their broken- arches and crumbling walls. The fertility which one made this country th«- marvel of the world has departed, and instead 1 of abundant life, death reigns. The causes, which induced this unparalleled, collapse, are undisputed. The Assyrian, and Sassanian kingdoms owed their glory, to agriculture, i Their wealth was based, upon, the fertility and productiveness of the. soil^ — Assyria's. Agriculture and Jteigafcion.— "This productiveness again was mainly due to. irrigation. The great Narbwan Canal took off from the Tigris on. the left 'bank and supplied a whole plexus of canals and' irrigated a& immense area before it rejoined the river a little below; Badrai. On the eastern side the Dijail Caaal, over a- hundred kilometres- long and fifty metres wide, irrigated the lands above flood level as far south as Baghdad. In the neighbourhood of Baghdad these labyrinthine canals converted the plain into one vast garden. But the preservation of Titanic hydraulic works angues. the existence of a strong central government. The crumbling Sassanjan kingdom was riven by the Arabs, and the desertion of its ancient, bed by the main stream of the Tigris cut off the supply of the mighty . canals and- left them high and dry. The , Persian nobles, and landlords were powerless to repair the dykes, the main portion of the canal system became obliteiiiied, and the smiling igttrdeus succumbed to the conquering desert, j — Chaldea a Laughing Cornland. — " Nevertheless al? the conditions which made ancient Chaldea a laughing cornland remain, except the human directing force. ' The Tigris and Euphrates carry "to the" sea enough water to make the desert blossom again and to float the laden argosies to the ocean. Tlie coil needs only water to 1 resume its traditional fertility. Even now ; the traveller cannot fail to be impressed by -the evidence of amazing agricultural wealth revealed by .lie close-packed date groves on the flood lands of the Shatt-el-Arab, and at Basra the ocean-going liners carry their cargoes of grain in bulk. Nothing is needed but money, brains, and labour to make the Tigro-Euphnates Valley just such a waving wtieatfield as the Chijnab aud Jhelum Canal Colonies. This is the tack to wliich Sir William- Willcocka has bent all his energies-. — Amazing Possibilities. — " With every desire to take a restrained view of the position, it is impossible ta estimate the political and economic revolution which will be wrought in Arabistan by the restoration of its ancient irrigation' works ii^ anything but glowing terms,"' concludes the Times of India. "The desert will blossom like a garden, new cities will rise on the ruins of the mighty memorials of the Assyrian and SasKinian kings, Basra will become another Hamburg or Antwerp, and India will find in the Tigro-Euphratea Valley a field for colonisation and, trade rich beyond the dreams of avarice.' 1 THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA, By Sir Bap.tle Pbere, D.S.O. All who take a broad and view of South African affairs have long

felt that our colonies there' would be., both politically arid economically; better off if they were more closely allied among themeelves, while in recent years the rapid increase of railway systems and many other industrial developments have greatly intensified tlie need for a more homogeneous structure. In 1906 the various colonies requested the High Commissioner to afford them his views on the subject, an-d several resulting despatches, including an exhaustive memorandum by Lord Selborne, are embodied in Blue Book C, 3564, and throw great light on the subject. * In the brief limits of an article it is difficult to give even a hint of the various complexities of a problem which all authorities regard as equally grave and hard of solution, and which must task the best energies of the best men in South Africa. It is with the object of considf-nng it fully -hat- a National <3onvention has now been summoned and meets at Durban. Lord Selborne's memorandum covers about 50 pages of its Blue Book, and should receive careful study by all of us who are interested, as we are all concerned, in the question, for 't clearly portrays the urgent need for action. Here we have the'etory told of several neighbouring but distinct colonies, among which no two syßtems oi the rates of the railways 'which interweave them, of the Customs, of labour facilities, of native -policy, of law, or of departments are alike. It appears also that the .numerous administrations add greatly to the expense and dog to a most injurious extent the healthy flow of commercial and political life which ought to be that of one nation — Difficulties and Differences. — Space fails even to touch on many of the 'difficulties involved — such, for instance, as the fact that from Portuguese territory comes three-quarters of tihe native labour for the mines (on whose steady working depends at present the general prosperity oi all South Africa), and the further fact that most of the Transvaal freight traffic passes over the railway to DeJagoa Bay, ireiead of moving, as formerly, over th© lines which lead to ports in Cape Colony and Natal. Differences -which axe ceaseless, and under present conditions most natural, ane constantly arising between the separate f iovernmentß of the various colonies, jsach. £l 3 could scarcely be avoided were all men angels; and the >High Commissioner has 'distantly to act as peacemaker in the jarring situations which perpetually arise ' — while a deadlock is often only avoided by the instinct wbich^duces a colony that thinks itseJf wronged, to refrain fromVpreesing its claims lest, perchance, itself as well •as it 6 -neighbours be precipitated into » common ruin by the dislocation of trade. It is thus felt that, other things equal, if all these complications could be simplified advantage must ensue for ail men, while the analogies of history in various parts of the world seem invariably to show that the difficulties which have arisen are hot the least to be wondered at, and that wherever have a number of neighbouring colonies insufficiently combined they are perpetually at feud, tdnce tihere is no supreme power capable of deciding points of difference among them. ! But to obtain a result which shall be satisfactory in the long issne, one thing is above all neecesary — i.e., that all the delegates to the Convention shall work patriotically for the benefit of the whole community, "regarding it 36 one organism." — Boer Policies. — By the sudden conferring of responsible government on the two new colonies we have hanSed them back, in the main, to ! tlie former Boer leaders, whose policy I already dominated the Cape Colony : and the following question arises : If the unification of all the colonies is brought about, can we be sure that other than Boer in-tf-rests and Boer objectives will get afir ■ play? * j Sit- is useless to burke this question. It I lies at the root of th© whole inatteT. " It is fabulously related of .the basilisk that if he sees a man first tine man pre- j sently dies, but if the man has first glance he kills the basilisk ; so frauds, impostures, j .and tricks do not hurt if first discovered, . •but if they strike first it is then they j become dangerous." J Thus, when treating of " Cautions," I wrote Francis Bacon, Lord Clianoellor of J-ngland, and perhaps the wisest of her I Eons. j Before, however, going further, let us Bool: backwards for a moment. South Africa in the late war was the Battlefield not so much of two races as of I ttvo opposing Ideals. That of the British was. one of fair play all round. That of. the Boer leaders was one of narrow clique government, coniducted by a Boer oligarchy of the leading end closely related Boer "families. And the complication of the problem by 'the accident that there were vast and cosmopolitan mining interests- out there should •never have been used as a red herring to ' confuse our 6eneee as io the reel main ' issue involved. To attain their object the Boer leaders l»ad had carefully, patiently, and, above all, secretly to prepare the" ground by a network of Bond centres, and very thor- j oughly they did so. Invisible at first to ' British Home Governments, though fore- J seen by some in authority out there, whose warnings were disregarded, the Boer schemes for ousting British Ideals from! tbeir midst were thus gradually developed 1 • 101 lit was thought safe to' sound the *a'umpet for battle. — A Retrospect. — The history of the contest; its agonising and heroic prosecution ; the extraordinary levity with which, when success seemed at last within grasp, the struggle W«s prematurely patched up, so that our i Dppon/ents were shortly able to persuade I *beir followers that they had never been thoroughly beaten j and the yet darker ' Stain which rests on that party here ,-which, the moment it attained to" poweT, Skilfully umrore what had with such

* neartrending difficulty been accomplished — all these occurrences are fresh in our memories. I The former Boer leaders, who are now , British Ministers, have repeatedly asserted I that the-t- are rjcing to be loyal to the j Empire. Yet the phrase may have vary- ' ing interpretations, and many of their actions since they took office would lead one to doubt whether their ideal is much changed after all. j Thus, while one must hope that all i the delegates will be true to the broad in- • terests of tlie country, one cannot but ! feel anxious whan one reads their names and learns that their gatherings are to be heJd with closed doors, and that Lord Selborne, who should be tlie common denominator of the whole, is not to be present at the discussions. Every effort should be made in this ' country to compel our Government to : exercise such remnants of influence as they , ' have left themselves by insisting that all the members of the Convention are genuinely enabled to confer ; and we must earnestly trust that those who are in a minority at the -conclave will see to it that the balance is held true, and that no undue "closure" of debate be permitted till matters concerned have been threshed out; that nothing be" decided till the conclusions have been revised and revised again, and a harmonious balance of the rights of all inalienably secured. For it must never be lost sight of that if unification takes place greater power will be in the hands of the then central Government than any of the former smaller Governments possessed. Is this power to be used for proper purposes and with a view to the benefit of ' the entire community, without forgetting the part the latter holds in the British Empire^? Or is i€ to be used merely to . complete the attainment of the Bond ideal?— -Daily Mail.