'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎255v] (513/862)

SS 88 SSSS 33 *
^86 ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC LIFE
the Secretary of State for India. Several of the towns remained under
military governors, but although the titles were not altered, their
duties became civil rather than military. As the occupied area was
extended the number of political officers was increased. The Turkish
administrative division of Baghdad vilayet into three divisions
(sanjaqs) was replaced by a more convenient grouping of the districts
(qadhas) into seven small provinces (liwas). After the armistice the
whole country was carefully divided on tribal and ethnological lines
into fourteen provinces, which still exist, though they were tem
porarily abandoned in 1921 (p. 394)-
At an early stage a revenue department had been created under a
Revenue Commissioner. At the end of 1916 its place was taken by a
Revenue Board consisting of two officers who divided the country
geographically between themselves. Later this division was abolished
but the department was divided into two independent organizations—
a Revenue and a Financial Department—with a secretary at the head
of each. A group of other departments—Education, Waqf, Cus
toms—and even the preliminary organization of the machinery of
Justice were attached to the Revenue Department.
The Departments of Irrigation and Agriculture were formed in
1918 as military units working under a Board of Agriculture composed
of civil and military members. In 1919 the functions of these two
departments were handed over entirely to the civil authorities. The
Public Works Department also developed directly out of the military
administration, but it remained under military control longer than
the others. In 1920 a civil department of Public Works took over the
Irrigation Department, whose chief duties were protection against
flood, the control and conservancy of rivers and canals, and the
distribution of water between the different watercourses, many of
which needed extensive clearing and rebuilding. The Survey Direc
torate, another military organization, was transferred at the same
time.
Administration of justice continued to cause trouble. In Baghdad
vilayet, as in Basra, all the judges and senior officials of the courts
had withdrawn on the British occupation. Most of the records had
gone with them, those that remained had been destroyed in the course
of the looting that intervened between the Turkish withdrawal and
the effective occupation by the British army. The authorities in
London refused to sanction the extension to the Baghdad vilayet of
the special code which had been introduced in Basra vilayet. The
beginnings of a system were, however, quickly built up. It began