'Reports of administration for 1918 of divisions and districts of the occupied territories in Mesopotamia. Volume I' [‎78r] (160/470)

restored, and the cultivators come to regard Irrigation Officials as among their best
friends.
It is now, I presume, only a matter of months before the Irrigation Department
comes under the Civil Commissioner, and I trust that it will then be possible to
define more accurately the respective spheres of Political and Irrigation Officers.
At present, the attitude of the Irrigation Department seems to be that a Political
Officer has no concern with any question affecting water supply, and that the opening
and closing of canals, the saving of one man’s crop at the expense of another’s, &c.,
are matters for the decision of the D.I.O. alone. Irrigation Officers even object
to the presentation of petitions concerning water to Political Officers, and decline
to give their opinion on these when asked to do so on the ground that the petitions
should be addressed to an official of their department. Apart from the obvious
necessity of maintaining the right of any person to petition his P.O. or A.P.O., the
effect of this attitude is to deprive a Political Officer of one of his most useful means
of administration, as well as of the opinion of an irrigation expert, and to exclude
political considerations from all irrigation matters. Moreover, it is considered
by irrigation officers that petitions should be presented not to the D.I.O. but to
the section officer. A section officer is a subordinate official ranking below an
A.I.O., and I consider it unseemly that the Shaikh of a tribe should be required to
present himself as a suppliant before a person of that class. The question of petitions
was taken up strongly in his 2,111 FI of 9th August 1918 to the Civil Commissioner
by the late P.O. Hillah, who dealt also with general questions in his 1,831 FI of
17th July 1918 to the Revenue and Financial Secretary.
Ultimately the only workable method will probably be that an Irrigation Officer
should be the technical adviser of the P.O. or A.P.O., whose decision on any point
not purely technical would hold good unless reversed by his superiors, it being not
for the Political Officer but for the Irrigation Officer to appeal to higher authority
in case of disagreement. In practice, the Political Officer would seldom find it
necessary to interpose, and, except as regards new works and extensions, he would
probably not concern himself with such questions unless things were not going
well; but, subject to the control of higher authority, the decision would rest with
him if he chose to take the matter up. This system may not be practicable now,
but I suggest that at present, just as under the Director of Irrigation’s orders, original
works are not to be undertaken without reference to the Political Officers ; so, before
any distribution of water likely to cause loss to cultivators is made, or similar action
taken, the P.O. or A.P.O. should be consulted by the D.I.O. Similarly as regards
petitions, I suggest that just as the Political Officer informs the D.I.O. of his opinion
of a proposal from a political point of view, so the D.I.O. should, when asked, give
the Political Officer the benefit of his opinion on the applicant’s request, and,
generally, inform the Political Officer what action he considers advisable in any matter
about which his opinion is requested. There is no question of subordinating one
Department to the other, but the situation is clearly impossible if Irrigation Officers
decline to give Political Officers information, merely because a petition was not
addressed to them.
4. Agriculture : Farms .—Captain Cameron, Circle Officer, arrived here in
August last, and has started a small farm on the Barrage Road. At present he
is confining himself to growing fodder for the dairy farm, and to experimenting
with Indian wheat. The land was occupied without my knowledge, and the site
is not suitable, being on tapu land and disputed tapu land at that. Before next
season it will probably be advisable to shift the farm to the Wardiyah canal, where
the land is Mudawarrah. A stud bull, which was imported, broke loose, and ultimately
perished after spreading terror over the surrounding country.
Potatoes .—Potato seed was issued to three or four land-owners, from whom we
raised an excellent crop, but the other crops failed. The Government share of
the successful crop was set aside as seed, but unfortunately it rotted. I think the
cultivation of the potato, which is popular as a food with such Arabs as have tried
it, should be extended, but it is necessary to proceed cautiously as with any new
crop, for each failure discourages several prospective cultivators. Probably the
best method would be to grow a plot of potatoes on the Circle Officer’s farm as a
demonstration, and to give out a small quantity of seed on very easy terms to
selected land-holders who would cultivate under the Circle Officer’s supervision.
I trust that some means of keeping potatoes through the summer will be discovered.