TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE MESOPOTAMIAN IMBROGLIO.
UNLESS we can find some better way of dealing with Mesopotamia than our present way, the land of the Two Rivers will be our ruin. That is the long and short of the situation. We are keeping in Mesopotamia (a country with has Than three million inhabitants) an army of which it is impossible to get the exact figures, but in which there are almost as many white troops as were required to put down the Mutiny, or at any rate to acquire the Indian Empire. In addition there is a very large body of Indian troops. When we think of the number of white troops and natives found. sufficient to administer an empire of three hundred millions, the military figures for Mesopotamia can only be regarded as pre- posterous. We do not deny that the huge size of our new Asian Dominion and the unrest in Persia may seem to justify the employment of 80,000 troops. What we do say is that if an army of that kind is fully employed, then we are doing the thing from the military point of view on much too grand and luxurious a scale. We are trying also to maintain much too high a standard, social and political, and one very different from that which we should have dreamt of maintaining if we had not had to fight the very formidable army which the Turks put into the field under German direction and with a German stiffening. It is in this overdoing of the Pax Britannica in Mesopotamia that our error lies. But happily the solution of the Mesopotamian problem is, in our opinion, also indicated by it. The proposition can be stated in very plain terms. If things go on as they are going in Mesopotamia the British Empire will become bankrupt. We must either leave the country or find a new way of life on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates. But we cannot leave altogether without disgrace, considering our commitments and the promises we have made. Therefore we must find this new way of life, and we must find it by ruling and controlling in the sort of way that we exercised rule and control in the East in old days—in the days before it was thought neces- i ary to introduce all the amenities of bureaucracy and of material progress which our eager officials now want us to introduce, not as the growth of generations of patient labour, but instantly. Just now every official, like the lady in Ibsen's play, wants to have his Castle Bureaugard " down on the table " and without waiting a moment. The officials must be told, however, that they cannot have it instanter, but that they must jog along in the way that contented the Wellesleys and even the Dalhousies of former years, and that contented Lord Cromer and Lord Kitchener in the early days of the Egyptian occupation, not only of the Sudan but of Egypt itself. Imagine what Lord Cromer would have thought of a primitive Eastern country with three million inhabitants with four hundred and fifty British executive officers at large salaries, and eighty thousand troops, not raised in the country itself, but brought from vast distances—from England and from India.
The old method has from the first been our solution of the financial and military imbroglio of Mesopotamia, and we were innocent enough to think that it would be prin- ciples of that kind which would be applied.to Mesopotamia as soon as the actual fighting with the Turks was over. Not a bit. Mesopotamia has become a playground of those Playboys of the Western World, Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill, with—to borrow the language of the Law Courts—" Oil Kings intervening." That being so, our readers can imagine with what intense satis- faction we read the letter on " Our Policy in Mesopotamia " which appeared in the Times of Friday, July 23rd. Colonel Lawrence, it may be remembered, was the wandering Oxford scholar and archaeologist who rose like a star in the East during the war, and showed that the old style of Eastern Imperial adventurer still existed among us, and was not only as daring and self-sacrificing in spirit as ever, but had over Eastern peoples the magnetic power of his predecessors in Imperial title. Colonel Lawrence may perhaps — and who can wonder or be angry if that is the case ?—exaggerate the political and military ability of his Arab friends, but there can be no doubt that he knows the Arabs thoroughly and that within proper limits his opinion of them can be trusted. He speaks of a " new Asia "—we suspect that the new Asia is very much like the old—and tells us that what it wants is not so much freedom from the Turk or even good government as inde- pendence. According to Colonel Lawrence, " Meso- potamia's desire for independence grows," or at all events Mesopotamia's desire to share in her own government. Yet at the present moment the country is being run by " four hundred and fifty British officers and not a single responsible Mesopotamian." From the point of view of the Mesopotamians themselves this is of course very much. worse than the Turkish regime, for then 70 per cent. of the Executive Civil Service was local. Again, our 80,000 troops are entirely divorced from the local population, whereas in the Turkish Army 60 per cent. of the officers were Arabs and 95 per cent. of the soldiers. Colonel Lawrence's proposals for a remedy had better be given in his own words :— " A remedy ? I can see a cure only in immediate change of policy. The whole logic of the present thing looks wrong. Why should Englishmen (or Indians) have to be killed to make the Arab Government in Mesopotamia, which is the considered intention of His Majesty's Government ? I agree with the intention, but I would make the Arabs do the work. They can. My little experience in helping to set up Feisal showed me that the art of government wants more character than brains. I would make Arabic the Government language. This would impose a reduction of the British staff, and a return to employ- ment of the qualified Arabs. I would raise two divisions of local volunteer troops, all Arabs, from the senior divisional general to the junior private. [Trained officers and trained N.C.O.'s exist in thousands.] I would entrust these new unite with the maintenance of order, and I would cause to leave the country every single British soldier, every single Indian soldier. These changes would take twelve months, and we should then hold of Mesopotamia exactly as much (or as little) /is we hold of South Africa or Canada. I believe the Arabs in these con- ditions would be as loyal as anyone in the Empire, and they would not coat us a cent. I shall be told that the idea of brown Dominions in the British Empire is grotesque. Yet the Montagu scheme and the Milner scheme are approaches to it, and the only alternative seems to be conquest, which the ordinary Englishman does not want, and cannot afford. Of course, there is oil in Mesopotamia, but we are no nearer that while the Middle East remains at war, and I think, if it is so necessary for us, it could be made the subject of a bargain. The Arabs seem ■villing to shed their blood for freedom ; how much more their oil ! "
We do not by any means pledge ourselves to agreement with every word of Colonel Lawrence's specific proposals, but, speaking generally, we feel convinced that his mind has been moving on the right lines. We shall have to adopt for Mesopotamia Lord Cromer's policy of English brains and native hands. We can happily carry this policy a great deal further than we were able to do in Egypt, because the Arab brain is a much finer one than the Egyp- tian and the Arab character more steadfast and more capable of bearing responsibility. Things will not perhaps go so quick as Colonel Lawrence fancies. We expect ourselves that it will be a long time before the Arabs in Mesopotamia will be able to dispense with English advice and control at the top. But, after all, optimism is an affair of youth of which Colonel Lawrence has the conquer- ing gift.
Although we heartily agree with the general principle that we must raise native troops and depend upon them to keep order, both internal and on the frontiers, we hold that, just as in the case of the Egyptian and Sudanese troops, it would be well that the commanding and training officers should be Englishmen to begin with. These Englishmen will gradually give place to the Arabs whom they will have trained to accept what we can say without fear of contradiction are the best military ideals in the world—those of the English officer. Moreover, we think it probable that at first it would be wise to keep a couple of English regiments and perhaps four Indian regiments in Mesopotamia as a spearhead for the Arab force. It must be remembered that whatever Arab government we create in Mesopotamia will at first be subject to many severe trials. As in Egypt the Egyptian' government of the Khedives was kept and is still kept steady by the Army of Occupation, so that enlightened Arab government which we believe can be set up may require help to maintain itself during the reaction—which is certain to occur—from Colonel Lawrence's new Asia to the old. Even in Europe reaction always follows any- thing in the shape of revolution, and the East is by no means exempt from this rule, but rather more subject to its operation. However good and wise the government that is set up in Mesopotamia, we venture to say that in ten years we shall hear a great deal about " the old Arab," and how he still forms the bedrock of the population. But whether we are right in our caution or Colonel Law- rence is right in his optimism is not the point at the moment. The great thing is the physical and practical necessity of reducing our commitments in Mesopotamia and creating, as Colonel Lawrence might say, a show that can run itself. The essential is to know first the kind of Prince or Poten- tate we should set up, and next where to find him. These problems are, we confess, too hard for us, but no doubt Colonel Lawrence knows exactly where to find the right kind of Prince, or possibly communal or co-operative Princes in the shape of a Council or Republic of Emirs. In any case, the local and native government must have a good English adviser, especially in the matter of finance. In other words, there must be in Mesopotamia a Cromer in the person of a British Agent who will be able not only to give advice, but to veto, if necessary, any act of supreme folly should it be contemplated. There must be somebody who can say, as Lord Cromer in the early part of his career often had to say : " You haven't got the money, and therefore you can't be allowed to spend or to borrow " ; or who would insist that the " No " which Eastern Sovereigns find it as difficult to say as Western Sovereigns find it should on occasion be said, and said with emphasis. Finally, the Cromer in Mesopotamia must be able to check the rise either of the Vizier or the Captain of the Host who in Eastern countries is always apt to grow up and overshadow or drive into seclusion the real monarch. Whether the " Cromer of Mespot " we have described is to be found in Colonel Lawrence himself we do not venture to say, but we feel sure that his inspira- tion and his advice will be of the greatest use in fashioning the new State which is not only to provide good govern- ment on the Tigris and .Euphrates, but to save the British Empire from bleeding to death between the two rivers. Our gratitude in any case is due to Colonel Lawrence for the boldness, plainness, and sincerity with which he has approached the problem. How much better and more dignified is his blunt and honest rashness than the tortured and timid tergiversations of the opportunist politician— sly, slobbery, and sophistical !
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