there was no one qualified to make them. With difficulty teachers were found; and within six weeks of the occupation a class somewhat similar to the Patwari classes in India was started. In the first twelve months this class turned out eighty students qualified in the computation of area, elementary survey, and revenue work. They were nearly all employed as student engineers by the irrigation officers, whose need of staff was most pressing; and very few proved unsatisfactory. Some showed exceptional ability and rose in a short time to the post of Assistant Engineer.

All this was not without influence on the Sheikhs of the agricultural tribes, but what appealed still more to them was the attention which was being paid to the agriculturist. The oil-driven pumping plants, of which there are over three hundred in the neighbourhood of Baghdad, were again busy on the banks. The oil fuel, of which the natives had been deprived for the past two years, was provided by military transport; stolen parts were traced and recovered; assistance was given; and eventually a separate branch of the military workshop was established for the repair of agricultural machinery. Seed, even of strange plants such as the potato, was distributed, and advice on cultivation afforded. Side by side with these tangible evidences of our good will was the ever-widening influence of Sir Percy Cox himself. 'Kōkus' had become a hero; songs in his honour were being sung at the camp-fire; and a mythical Saga of his 'doings and the motives therefor was passed on from Arab to Arab and repeated by those who had never even seen him.

This point had been reached when the Agricultural Development Scheme was put forward. It was therefore possible to assume the existence of such relations between the British and the Arab that the latter would work trusting to the promises of the British, and the British would provide ways and means with a reasonable certainty of honourable repayment in due season. Ways and means resolved into the provision of water, seed and cash advances.

Work had been commenced on the Bani Hassan Canal, the feeder canal designed by Willcocks and aligned but abandoned by the Turks; it remained to carry it through.

10

The irrigation staff now working under the Engineer-inChief were in charge, and they also designed and obtained h sanction for the parallel project, a canal eventually christened the Georgeiyah. These two canals were finished by November 1917, and actually provided 50,000 e acres of new cultivation, and some 20,000 tons of crop in the spring of 1918. The old canals required to be cleared of silt. Those that were State property were put in order at once; private owners were required to see to their own estates. Some pleaded inability, and their work was taken over by Scheme' and charged against the proprietor. In November there was a set-back. Tribal disturbances in the area north of Musaiyib arrested work on the canals there, and they had to be abandoned for the season. But at the same time General Maude E advanced up the Diyalah, and the 100,000 acres lost 30 on the Euphrates were made good on the Tigris and its tributaries. The Hindiyah barrage was managed by a British officer, but the distribution of water was left so far as possible in the hands of the Arabs themselves, irrigation officers interfering only on occasions when rotation was necessary.

More difficult was the supply of seed. The harvest of 1917 was sufficient to provide all the requirements of the local civil population on the Hillah Canal and adjoining districts, and also to furnish seed for the extended cultivation which was in contemplation in that area The danger was that the cultivators might be tempted by the high prices prevailing at Baghdad and beyond to sell what they should have retained for their next sowing. Agreements were therefore made with the Sheikhs whereby, on the promise of a small percentage of the future revenue, they undertook both to guarantee the reservation of seed and the prompt payment of the demand when it should be made. These measures were successful; and, except for some of the virgin soil on the new canals, advances of seed were small from Musaiyib downwards. But on the more northerly canals, as also on the Tigris and Diyalah, there was literally no seed; import was therefore necessary. Over six thousand tons were obtained from India and dis tributed to several thousand peasants. This involved the preparation of revenue accounts in Arabic, and the

recruitment and training of a granary and clerical staff. $ The purchase of the seed and its arrival at distribution centres was arranged by the military. The scheme was sanctioned in August 1917; by the end of January 1918 the seed was in the ground.

There was one other requirement-money.

The

practice in Irak is for a tenant, whether holding from Government or from a proprietor, to apply for permission to cultivate a particular area, usually watered by at least one complete branch of a canal. He collects labourers; and each labourer brings a yoke of oxen, a plough and seed sufficient for ten acres. Should he fail in any of these requirements-and he usually does-the tenant supplies them on credit against repayment by the labourer out of his share at harvest. The labourer is not paid wages, but is given a percentage of the crop, usually one-third. Out of this he has to repay advances, and very often is left with nothing more than a handful of grain to carry him on till next harvest. The labourer was thus kept in perpetual serfdom, so much so that, if he wished to leave his master, the new master was compelled to pay his debts to the old. When labour is hired for the first time, the master usually makes a cash advance; in pre-war days it was about thirty rupees, now it is generally double. Provision had to be made for these advances, as also for the purchase of cattle and the clearance of canals owned by private individuals. Cash advances cost, in round figures, 20,000Z.; canal clearances, 30,000l.; the value of seed advanced was 150,000l. All advances were subject to interest. As the bulk of the work was done by the civil staff employed under the political officers, the expenditure on management was small.

The success of the Scheme exceeded expectations (see above, p. 416), for it produced 253,000 tons of crop and 50,400 tons of revenue. By October 1918 49,000 tons of revenue corn had been handed over to the army; by February 1919 approximately 80 per cent. of advances had been repaid. The few debts to the Scheme which had to be wiped off because of damage by drought or Hood were made good by the interest received on debts paid; and, as most of the expenditure was in the form of advances, the net cost of the advantages secured was small.

The Scheme was concerned only with production. The produce, however, had to be cleaned, crushed, sacked and transported; and the straw had to be stacked, baled and carted. An added difficulty was that transport had always to be upstream. All this was undertaken by the Department of Local Resources, in conjunction with the transport directorate. Machinery for cleaning, crushing and baling was imported from India. The railway reached Hillah by the end of May; by the first week in July grain was being received almost more quickly than it was possible to dispose of it.

In the meanwhile developments had taken place at head-quarters. At the end of November 1917 orders were received to extend production to its maximum. Every measure that could be provided for the next ensuing crop had already been taken; it was now required to prepare for still further expansion. A Directorate of Irrigation was therefore formed, and a staff of agricultural experts collected. In the spring of 1918 Mesopotamia was visited by a commission consisting of the DirectorGeneral of Irrigation in India and the Imperial Agriculturist. They made certain recommendations, the most important being the establishment of a Board of Agriculture, the formation of the agricultural staff into an Agricultural Directorate, and the creation of large Government farms. A rough estimate was prepared for the 1918-19 cultivation; and a Board of Agriculture was created under the presidency of the D.Q.M.G., with the First Revenue Officer as Secretary and member. The total area under cultivation in 1917-18 was calculated at 1,000,000 acres, of which 600,000 were in the Baghdad vilayet. It was proposed to increase this to 1,500,000 acres, the maximum for which water could be made available, population found, and cattle provided.

Thirty-two minor schemes were also considered. Of these the most urgent was the provision of a new head to the Khalis Canal. This engineering feat, which involved the driving of a passage through the rocks of the Jabal Mansuriyah, saved a valuable cereal and garden area of over 100,000 acres from a precarious situation, a bend of the river having dangerously threatened the old headworks. Equally valuable was the construction of one new and the revival of another