Papers of the Interdepartmental Conference on Middle Eastern Affairs [‎54v] (108/290)

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maintaining a garrison should be as light as possible. It was on
this ground that he had ventured to mention the matter, which was
otherwise somewhat beyond his competence.
General Cox said that another possible saving was in the
construction of barracks. He considered we should avoid the
mistake which had been made in India of building palatial barracks,
which had the strategic objection that they tied us down to a single
spot, and the financial objection of expense. We should follow our
later experiences in the plains of India, which had shown the
possibility of constructing house room on the hut system, with all
facilities for hot weather, at a much lower cost.
The Conference decided that Colonel Wilson should draw up his
proposals in the form of a memorandum for the considera
tion of the General Staff.
gation. 8 . Colonel Wilson said that in the Irrigation Department he would
have to look locally for his labour. The difficulties to be faced,
apart from the labour trouble, were mainly financial. The Irriga
tion Department had been created under military auspices on an
ambitious scale. It had a large capital expenditure and considerable
capital commitments. After six months of discussion it was taken
over by the Civil Administration on the 1st April. If we were
obliged to cut down civil expenditure absolutely rigorously, the first
Department to go would be that of irrigation, but it would be greatly
against the interests of the country if this were done, and would put
things back five years. The lowest sum on which we could keep it
going was eighty lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees of rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. a year. It was difficult at this
stage to estimate the receipts, because they were all indirect and
buried in the land revenue estimate. The estimate of expenditure
for last year was 240 lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees , but as we could not get sufficient labour
we had only spent half that amount. He understood that he was to
be asked to take over 50 .per cent, of the cost of irrigation works,
and that the other 50 per cent, was to be regarded as a bad debt.
The estimated deficit of one and a half million included half a
million on irrigation. The reason for this was that maintenance
charges were very heavy. They covered extensive repairs to the
Hindieh Barrage, which w r as wearing badly, and extensive works at
Amara. In reply to a question by the Chairman, he said the land
revenue was about 1 , 000 ,OOOL ; this year’s crop from irrigated areas
was three times, and last year’s one and a half times, the pre-war
average. He considered that the work we had done in irrigation
had already yielded a return, but that it was not yet a very good
return, as we had only just begun to reap the benefit of the work
done, and the Civil Administration could usefully spend on irrigation
2 , 000 , 0 ()OL a year for the next five years.
He asked if it was desirable to request contractors to take up
part of the work. Our experience in Mesopotamia had hitherto
been that we could do it considerably cheaper ourselves.
Mr. Kidston said Messrs. Pearson & Jackson claimed they had a
monopoly over contracts for irrigation work in Mesopotamia.
Colonel Wilson said that meantime he had taken on the
Irrigation Department at high wages for a year, and had made
contracts with them. The new establishment would be 50 per cent,
smaller than the military establishment. Contracts would be
determinable at three months’ notice. Any civilised country would
call the expenditure for which he had budgeted maintenance, and
not capital.
Sir T. Holderness said that he thought that the first thing
which would have to be done after the Peace Conference had issued
their mandate would be to appoint a Pinancial Commission.