'Reports of administration for 1918 of divisions and districts of the occupied territories in Mesopotamia. Volume I' [‎67v] (139/470)

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The Bedu are beyond the limits of the occupied territory and the only effective
method of exercising control over them is through the payment of subsidies and
regulation of supplies of grain and other necessaries to them.
The arrangements in connection with supply of barley and wheat during the
past year for various reasons failed to provide the ‘Anizah with a sufficient quantity
to meet their requirements by the time they arrived on the borders of the Hindiyah
district, and the result was an outbreak of smuggling of grain, which was difficult
to deal with, and which resulted in one or two encounters between the Karbala
road Shabanah, and the Bedu and the creation of a good deal of ill-feeling between
the latter and the Bani Hasan, to which tribe the Shabanah belonged.
Next year there will not be the same difficulty in rationing the Bedu, but the
question is one which requires timely consideration. A further problem is the
settlement of outstanding claims between the Bedu and the settled tribes.
A certain number are still outstanding and Mit‘ab Beg of the ‘Anizah, who has been
representing them in this connection, has shown marked unwillingness to settle
several outstanding clqims.
Tribal Majlis .—The Hillah tribal majlis met but seldom during the year, but
the Assistant Political Officers availed themselves largely of the advice of the
Shaikhs which form it.
The Assistant Political Officer, Hindiyah, has formed a district majlis, consisting
of three tribesmen and one townsman of Hindiyah, who meet once a week and
deal with such disputes as the Assistant Political Officer refers to them. It is
hoped that this majlis will take a great deal of petty non-criminal case work off
the hands of the Assistant Political Officer.
It is quite impossible for the Assistant Political Officer to deal with more than
the more important disputes which arise in the district, unless he is to be unduly
confined to his office table, and it is greatly to be preferred that local men should
settle local disputes wherever this is possible rather than refer them to a Baghdadi
of the bad old official caste, and this is at present the alternative.
The settlement of disputes of all kinds by a majlis on the lines of established
tribal custom is familiar to the Arab, and if the majlis has behind it an authority
watching and, if necessary, revising its decisions and enforcing them when
approved, there is no reason why the results should not be good. The experiment
is certainly one that should be tried wherever possible-—if our administration is
to be a success we must have the active assistance and co-operation of the people
of the district. At present the best indigenous talent outside the towns is unwilling
to enrol itself in an administration the minor officials of which are mostly drawn
from the class which they have been wont to look upon as the embodiment of all
that is corrupt and inefficient.
Siege of Najaf.—The siege of Najaf consequent on the murder of Captain
Marshall was watched with close attention by the people of the Division, but, except
in Diwaniyah, there is no reason to suppose that there was ever any real' chance
of the sympathy which was undoubtedly felt for the holy place being translated
into deeds. It was, perhaps, fortunate that the trouble occurred at a time when
men’s thoughts were full of the large profits they expected to make from sale of
their grain in the approaching harvest. The firm* handling of the situation had an
admirable effect throughout the Division. While the tribes were anxious about
the safety of the Holy Shrines, probably few of them had much sympathy for the
people of Najaf in the troubles which they had brought on their own heads.
The future of the Tribal System .—The policy followed since our occupation of the
country has had the effect of solidifying and strengthening the tribal system and
at present the tribe is the readiest medium to hand through which to carry on the
administration of the district. It is almost certain, however, that the tribal
system will not survive the establishment of law and order. Under the conditions
which prevailed generally before our arrival in ‘Iraq, membership of a tribe was
an essential to the individual; for it was only as member of a tribe and backed in
the last resort by the arms of his clansmen, that the individual could hope not
for security for life and property, for this was unattainable, but for such measure of
support as would enable him, when wronged, to have some chance of redress
With the establishment of t he “ Pax Britannica ” through tire length and breadth
of Iraq, the tribe will cease to be a necessity to the individual—he will live in peace
and security and reap the fruit of his toil, not because he is a Bani Hasan or an
Albu Sultan, but because he is a civis Britannicus. Given a continuance of British