DEVELOPMENT OF IRAQ

Southland Times, Issue 22898, 25 May 1936, Page 8

DEVELOPMENT OF IRAQ

Petroleum • Resources INDUSTRIES OF GREAT VALUE MANY MODERN IDEAS INTRODUCED

(Special to The Times). Auckland, May 23. An indication of the extensive development that has taken place in. Iraq since the war was given by Lieut.Colonel J. Ramsay Tainsh, who has been a resident of the country for 19 years. From 1921 until a few months ago, when Great Britain handed control of the Iraq railways to the Iraq Government, Lieut-Colonel Tainsh was general manager of this department.

Besides its vast petroleum resources, Iraq had several industries that were of great value, said Lieut.-Colonel Tainsh. The country produced large quantities of the finest dates in the world, there were extensive exports of wheat and barley, and a considerable amount of inferior wool, suitable for carpet making, was grown. From a productive point of view, however, Iraq had been little more than “scratched” on the surface, but further irrigation development would more and more reveal the richness of the territory. The old military railway lines had been converted into successful commercial lines, Lieut.-Colonel Tainsh said. At one time the journey from Basra, •Iraq’s only port, to London by steamer took 28 days. The Beirut-Damascus-Bagdad motor service had then been inaugurated by the Nairn brothers, who came from New Zealand, enabling the journey from Bagdad to London to be made by motor and rail in eight days. Finally the Mosul-Aleppo-Stamboul rail service, developed by the Iraq Railways, had reduced the time from Bagdad to six days. Great Engineering Feat.

Another remarkable development, and also a great engineering feat, said Lieut.-Colonel Tainsh, had been the construction of the Irak Petroleum Company’s 1200-mile pipe lines from Kirkuh to Haifa and Tripoli, on the Mediterranean Sea. The lines passed through Transjordania and Palestine, thexSection to Haifa attaining a maximum height of 3000 ft. above sea level, and a maximum drop to 1300 ft. below sea level in the Dead Sea valley. The company was controlled by British, American, French and Dutch interests. Much was being done in the country for education, many fine schools having been established. Every attention was being given to sanitation, while in such cities as Bagdad, modem ideas of planning were being introduced in laying out new residential areas. At Basra one of the finest aerodromes in the world was being built, and at Bagdad, among other fine structures, the museum had now become worldfamous.