'Reports of administration for 1918 of divisions and districts of the occupied territories in Mesopotamia. Volume I' [‎93v] (191/470)

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APPENDIX B.
Copy of A.P.O. Musaiyib’s Harvest Report August 1918, No. 1318 of 26th August
1918 to P.O. Hillah.
1. Difficulties in arrangements for the collection of the harvest have in this district been, I imagine,
less than those that have been faced in other districts. Three of my principal collecting stations out
of four are on the railway, the fourth is Musaiyib itself, where there is ample and excellent granary
accommodation and labour. Furthermore three out of four of my shu'bahs consist almost entirely
of old Sanniyah estates, so that the additional difficulties occasioned by the interposition of the mallak
have not occurred, and, further, the people are well disciplined of old in the matter of bringing in clean
grain. My fourth Shu‘bah (Jurf al Sakhr) has not occasioned any difficulty, as mcM of the grain was
sold to Bedu in the fields as it was taken over by the mamurs, without the intervention of Resources.
2. The obvious difficulty which faced one from the beginning of things was that of transport. I
had hoped that the Zaqarit would solve this difficulty for me both by helping Sarkals and by carrying
grain belonging to Government from Musaiyib to the railway, and also by doing the bulk of the tibn
work, which remains a serious problem. But in point of fact they were very unsatisfactory during
their short stay in the country, now so tragically terminating. I succeeded, however, in getting them
to undertake to carry all the tibn of the Musaiyib shu‘bah and Iskandariyah from the cultivators’ fields
to the railway or Musaiyib for Rs. 6/4/- per ton. The value of this contract, however, was somewhat
vitiated by a change of mind on the part of Resources, who decided to have all tibn taken straight to
the railway owing to shortage of baling plant. The Zaqarit were unsettled by this and also by a
sudden demand by Colonel Leachman for 500 of their camels at Shithathah. They worked very badly
and I am almost glad to have seen the last of them. The blame for the breakdown of this arrangement
cannot be placed on Resources, and I think that in any case I should have been able to bring the
Zaqarit into line very soon.
3. It is, as you know, a cardinal point in the arrangements made by us that grain should be taken
over on one weighing and the process of taking over from the sarkal and handing over to Resources
should be a single one. It has not been easy to make people adhere to this in all cases, and I have
found several instances where mamurs have taken over grain and then have had to weigh it all over
again to Resources. I think the fault here has been with the mamur as often as not, he does not like
the arrangement.
4. As regards the special points mentioned by you, I have had no difficulty about the accommodation
of British ranks. I made no arrangements as I was not asked to do so, and in out-stations they are
mostly in tents. I have made no arrangements for the purchase of grain, designedly, and now that I
am to sell grain to the Anaizah to the extent of 1,800 tons, I do not propose that Resources should
buy at all in this district. No contracts had been made by them up to date. Labour has been a
difficulty at out-stations mostly owing to the enormous wages paid by the Railway. Labour made,
after several false starts, some arrangements for Nasiriyah, but I do not think they have been very
happy. Haswa was a difficulty for some time, but by raising the wage I think the mamur has got a
fairly satsifactory gang together, and the same is true of Mahmudiyah. It was perfectly obvious from
the beginning that we should have to arrange for labour outside the town, and, indeed, I consider that
it was our business to do so, and the Harvest Officer very properly applied to me from the first. I
have had no difficulty about the shortage of bags or rejection of grain.
5. As regards tibn I adopted the simple expedient of telling everybody that they had got to sell
an amount equal in weight to their miri, and making an arbitrary levy on cultivators who enjoy
a cash assessment. I arranged with the Harvest Officer a travelling collecting station on the Euphrates
especially for tibn, and this worked very well until I.W.T. called in the safinahs attached to it for more
urgent work.
No other points occur to me at the moment as worthy of record. Everything has on the whole gone
very smoothly so far.
(Signed) J. S. Thomson, Captain,
A.P.O., Musaiyib.
Copy of A.P.O Musaiyib’s No. 1755 of 15th November 1918 to P.O., Hillah,
PARAGRAPHS 1-4.
1. The barley harvest over the greatest part of the district was very fair. Owing to the fact that
Indian wheat was sown and failed there was practically no wheat at all, the Government share
amounting only to some 300 tons. The Mahmudiyah canal failed to produce any water and much of
the crop failed entirely. It was, had we known it, wrong to make any “ push ” to obtain extensive
shitwi crops on the Mahmudiyah. The old canal as it stood depended entirely on the spring rise in
the river, and never got water till about February, and shitwi crops were, therefore, we may suppose,
always precarious and the people dependent on their saifi.
2. Assessment Sih. It was originally intended to assess by a combination of measurement and
estimation. The canal engineers were to be responsible for measurements; an assessment committee
were to class all crops as good, medium or bad; and the assessment to be worked out on these two data
with the help of a rate per “ masharah ” fixed with the sanction of the Revenue Board.
The rates adopted were, for barley : good, 400 kilos; medium, 300 kilos, and bad, 200 kilos per
masharah. For wheat: good, 300 kilos; medium, 200 kilos; bad, 100 kilos per masharah.
The assessment committee consisted of three persons from the Ba'qubah district. I ordered them
to do a takhmin in certain parts of the district as well as a classification, notably on the Mahmudiyah.
Their work was satisfactory.