hose at Samawa, or collected from salt-pits, such as those at Kifri and the Jabal Hamrin, and priced to the public st the cost under the contract plus the authorised tax. preventive establishment against contraband existed, Put was hardly effective except in towns and large illages. The deserts of Irak are sufficiently abundant a salt for the rural population to arrange their own upplies; and the Debt Administration was unable to o more than prevent sale in the open market.

The

The liquor trade was in the hands of Jews. vourite intoxicant was spirit (arak) distilled in Baghdad nd Basra from dates, in Mosul more frequently from tisins, or a mixture of raisins and dates. Wine was not frequently made in Mosul, rarely in Baghdad. There as no limit either on the number of shops licensed or on e quantities brewed. Distillers were also allowed to all by retail. The refinements of an excise policy were nknown. Shop licences were assessed on the rental alue of the premises; the fee for distillation was based a the length of time occupied by the process. The nauthorised possession of a retort was an offence; and ersons desiring to distil hired this apparatus from the ebt at so much an hour, time being calculated from le moment the retort left the office to the moment its return. The distillery was usually at some disnce from the office building; and the spectacle of an varicious taverner, the retort clasped eagerly to his som, speeding on his outward and his homeward run the effort to reduce the number of wasted minutes, as an occasional delight even to the hazaar's most stolid ffee-drinkers. The system was bad, but the officials dere concerned not with government or morals, but with sh. The general welfare was beyond their purview; d the relation between the proceeds of a tax and the noyances which the collection of it entailed to the ade in general or the taxpayer in particular were no ncern of theirs.

The Public Debt has administered effectively the fiscal easures of which it has been given control, but the stitution of its administration has made reform of these easures almost impossible. The educated Turk must ve found in the presence in his country of a foreign rvice exercising some of the most important functions Vol. 232.-No. 461.

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of sovereignty at once an irritating monument to his country's inefficiency in the past and a great obstacle in the way of future progress.

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Such in brief was the machinery of Ottoman government in Mesopotamia. The extent to which it interfered past with the individual differed with the community to which that individual belonged. The dweller in towns could not escape the multifarious taxes; and village life repeated on a smaller scale town conditions. But in tribal areas such as the marsh lands between Nasiriyah and Kurnah, and the tract from Rumaitha to Samawa, the tax-collector hardly dared to appear. The district of Diwaniyah was a series of bullet-pocked forts, and life was cheap. Inter-tribal fighting was common; and casualties, mostly killed, would run into three figures. In quarrels such as these the Turkish official did not interfere. So long as enough revenue was paid to make it not worth while to set troops in motion to recover the balance, the district officer was content to leave matters to themselves. He found it politic to stimulate intertribal discord, and to set members of the same family at variance with one another, but, for the rest, the less he was bothered the happier he found himself. There was no attempt to improve conditions; canals which had silted up were abandoned; where marshes had formed, no attempt was made to drain them. The district officer coveted town life, and the eyes of the urban official were fixed on Constantinople; and all Constantinople asked for was surplus money for immediate spending.

There is one work in Irak to which the Turkish Government can point with some satisfaction. Shortly below the headworks of the canal which runs to Kerbala the Euphrates divides into two streams, one passing by the village of Hindiyah to Kufa and thence through the expanse known as the Sea of Shinafiyeh to Samawa; the other, known as the Hillah Canal, passing to the west, washing the skirts of deserted Babylon and flowing past the town of Hillah down to Rumaitha, whence it turns westwards till it meets the main stream just below Samawa. It was from this canal that most of the land taken up by private enterprise under Midhat Pasha's scheme was watered; and the area was the most thriv ing of all the scattered cornlands of Irak. But the

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anal depended on a barrage across the Euphrates; and the last quarter of last century this burst, and the anal ran dry. Local efforts at repair proving fruitless, fir W. Willcocks was consulted by the authorities at onstantinople; the land of the two rivers was surveyed; and a project was drawn up for barraging both the Tigris ad the Euphrates and constructing main and feeder inals, etc.-in short, for irrigating the 12,500,000 acres or which water is available. By the autumn of 1914 the arrage itself and the headworks to the Hillah Canal had en constructed, one of two feeder canals necessary to ake the barrage fully effectual had been aligned, and her work was proceeding. Progress was slow, but at ast the project was complete and the work begun.

II. Irak during the War.-Our advance on Basra llowed so rapidly on the declaration of war that this etch is a sufficiently accurate picture of government id governed up to the moment of occupation. With e retreating Turkish armies filed all the officials, cluding those of the Public Debt; but so rapid was eir flight that the records were left undamaged, and e public buildings untouched. It was the season at hich the revenue on dates is collected; demand stateents had been prepard by the Turks and preparations r collection completed. The orderly assumption by an cupying force of the normal privileges and duties of vernment has a steadying effect on the civil population an enemy territory; and in Basra within a few days the fall of the town the collection of revenue began. en came the advance to Nasiriyah on the Euphrates, Amarah, Kut, and Ctesiphon on the Tigris. Towns, they were occupied, were at once placed under miliry governorship; districts also began to take shape, arantees were exchanged with Sheikhs, revenue conacts were considered and where necessary revised, and urts of Civil Justice were opened at Basra. So oothly were things working that the Revenue Comissioner was busy in Kut shortly before it was invested. en followed the efforts to relieve the beleaguered rrison. That season was a bad one for the dates. Woods did much damage; and remissions and suspensions revenue were made where necessary. The sympathetic

but firm handling they received went far to establish ard the confidence of the agricultural tribes. By the ice, summer of 1916, when Mr Dobbs was invalided, the tive province of Basra was comparable to a section of tica Northern India. The business of government was in ure full swing. Oppressive taxation was disregarded or the mitigated; otherwise, as the law of nations demands, Fir the fiscal law of the country was maintained. Courts anc were busy, and the office of land registration, its papers be intact and in order, was reopened. Towns such as Basra ab and Nasiriyah were still under military governors; Suq Ar al-Shaiyukh, which had long defied Ottoman rule, was a fir kept quiet by the presence of a political officer. Kurnah, Tu Kilat Saleh, and Amarah were districts with an organisa-wee tion like that of the Baluch tumans.

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The Sheikh was held responsible as well for the law fas and order of his tribe as for the payment of revenue, butler was himself under the supervision of a political officer fo in charge of the district, who acted as town magistrate, president of the municipality, and representative of br Government in all its branches. Justice was summary, its and sentences were more varied and effective than those d found in the code. A policeman who deserted his officer r when attacked by hostile Bedouin was paraded throughly the bazaar of his native town bearing the placard: 'I am the policeman who deserted his Sahib in the hour of th danger.' A public servant found stealing Government i property was sentenced to carry through the bazaar an inscription in either hand, the one reading, With this hand I receive from Government,' the other, With this I steal from the Government I serve.' Dispensaries were opened; and much of the ophthalmia that curses Mesopotamia even more grievously than India was relieved. Government schools in Turkish times had fallen into disrepute, and competent teachers were not to be had. Arrangements were made with the American Mission School for the training of pupils for the teaching profession; and, as these became available, schools in which Arabic was the medium of instruction were opened.

Early in 1917, when it was certain that Mr Dobbs would not return, the post of Revenue Commissioner was abolished and a Revenue Board substituted. The

1

oard consisted of two members of the Indian Civil ervice, styled First and Second Revenue Officer repectively, and was entirely subordinate to the Chief olitical Officer. In the spring of 1917 General Maude reptured Kut and marched on Baghdad. Sir Percy Cox ft the Second Revenue officer in Basra, and ordered e First Revenue Officer to join him at Baghdad. Our Ivance on Baghdad, unlike our occupation of Basra, ad been expected; and all the records considered aluable had been destroyed or removed by the Turks. he Arts and Crafts School had been deliberately bombed, d fires had been started in the city. What furniture e Turks left was ransacked by the mob in the interval tween the departure of the Turk and the arrival of e British; and the Government offices were a filthy nfusion of broken furniture, dirt and piles of paper. "rder was at once restored by the Military Governor; it for some time it was difficult to obtain open assistance om the inhabitants. Too vivid was the memory of e butcheries at Kut, when those who had assisted the ritish were brutally massacred, with their families; id it was only those who were prepared to throw in eir lot with us at all risks who came forward in the

rly days. The Public Debt Officials, it was true, mained at their posts, but each office was prepared ith a formal protest against interference; and the staff, hile passively submissive to orders, were disinclined assist actively the reconstruction of government.

The agricultural situation in March and April was ry gloomy. The country-side was in the grip of mine. In 1915 and 1916 the harvests had been bad, hile the floods had breached the embankments, swamped aghdad itself, and caused great distress. The 1917 arvest was ripening, but it too was a poor one. On the uphrates the tribesmen had defied the authorities. overnment tenants had been unable to go near their tates. The canals had not been cleared of silt, and livation had been restricted.

On the Tigris matters were worse. In anticipation a reverse the Turks had driven all cultivators off the ver between Baghdad and Amarah; and there were erally no crops. The fighting between Baghdad and amarra destroyed almost all the crops on the right