Papers of the Interdepartmental Conference on Middle Eastern Affairs [‎52r] (103/290)

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(a.) Inland Water Transport .—He was anxious not to take over
this Department under any circumstances. • He gathered
that they could be demobilised.
(b.) Port Directorate .—He proposed to take this over with the
railways under the Director General of Transportation.
(c.) Local Resources .—This Department had been abolished,
and the Civil Administration had taken over charge of
such of its duties as had not been taken over by the
Supply and Transport Corps and Army Service Corps.
{d.) Labour and Public Worhs.—W ith the kind assistance of the
War Office, he had secured the services of Major-General
E. de V. Atkinson, who had accepted the post of chief
engineer, and would go out to Mesopotamia in the
course of the next few mouths. these Departments
would then come under civil control.
(e.) Telegraphs. — He understood this Department had been
taken over from the 1st April.
(f.) Medical.—This was really a matter for the Secretary of
State to decide whether or not India and Mesopotamia
were to have their wants supplied. There was an all
round shortage of medical men at present. He had put
up his case, the Government of India had put up theirs,
and correspondence on the subject was now in progress.
The military authorities had been anxious for him to
assume the responsibility of sanitation in towns, and
also to take over and construct hospitals for the use of
the staffs of railways, irrigation, agriculture, and other
“ quasi-civil ” Departments. He had replied that he could
not consider the proposal until the railways had been
transferred, when it would be worth while to build these
hospitals. The present expenditure on sanitation was
twice or three times as heavy as in normal times owing
to the large number of British in the country who
required a higher standard of sanitation than the civil
inhabitants. Hospitals and sanitation were amongst the
heaviest items in the budget of the Civil Administration.
Mr Kidston asked how far Colonel Wilsop was prepared to
meet a charge by, say, France, that he was anticipating the decisions
of the Peace Conference in making these proposals.
Colonel Wilson said that to such a charge he would reply
(a) as regards medical arrangements he had done nothing that was
not absolutely necessary in the interests of the health of the troops,
and to give the inhabitants no worse service than they previously
enjoyed! (b) As regards irrigation, he would say that all he had
done was to restore the country to its pre-war state, and would
claim that he had undertaken practically no really new works ;
(c) As regards agriculture, he would reply that die had grown such
crops as were necessary to feed the army, and had experimented
with a view to improving the quality; (d) As regards railways, a
glance at the map was sufficient to prove their purely military
character. The various lines to Feluja, to Teknt, to Khanikm, to
Nasiriyeh, to Amara, had all stopped in mid-air as soon as the
military necessity for which each had been constructed had
disappeared.
General Cox asked if Colonel Wilson considered the Basra-
Naeariyeh-Hillah-Baghdad line of a purely military nature.
Colonel Wilson said that at the present time he did. It had
been throughout a purely military proposition, and had been built
to supplement the shortcomings of the Inland Water Transport.
Large economies in transportation would follow its completion. As
to the projected railway to Mosul, it would be built for purely
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