Papers of the Interdepartmental Conference on Middle Eastern Affairs [‎56v] (112/290)

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left to the local authorities to raise the question hereafter as circumstances require.
In the meantime it is suggested that authority might be given to the Civil
Commissioner, in consultation with the General Officer Commanding, to engage
officers on temporary contracts for service in “ quasi-civil" Departments under
precisely the same conditions as those outlined above as applying to the Civil
Departments proper. Such officers would form part of the military administration
so long as their Departments remained under direct military control; on the
transfer of their Departments, they would pass automatically to the civil side.
1 heir pav, &c., would be chargeable to local revenues from the date of their engage
ment under contract. 1 he arrangement would of course be a purely temporarv one.
\ desirable to intimate to the Civil Commissioner that the authority
^Ineh it is proposed to give him is intended to be sparingly used; and there can be
no question of maintaining the personnel of the “ quasi-civil ” Departments
indefinitely at its present strength.
9. To sum up, the following recommendations are submitted :—
(1) That the cost of the return passage of British officers and other ranks
proceeding to England lor demobilisation with a view to re
employment in a civil capacity in Mesopotamia should be accepted as
^ a charge a.gainst the revenues of the occupied territory;
( 2 ) That the Civil Commissioner be authorised, in amplification of the.
instructions of the 24th January 1919, to exercise a certain discretion
in fixing the period of temporary contracts for the engagement of
of officers for the civil administration, subject in all cases to an
absolute maximum of three years;
(3) That the Civil Commissioner be authorised, in consultation with the
General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, to engage officers under
temporary contract for employment in “ quasi-civil ’’ Departments
not yet transferred to the civil administration : the conditions governing
such contracts to be similar to those applying to the engagement of
officers for the Civil Departments proper;
(4) 1 hat officers so apnointed to quasi-civil Departments should remain
in direct subordination to the militarv authorities pending transfer of
their Departments, their pay, &c., being chargeable to local revenues
from the date of their engagement under contract.
J E S
Political Devartment, India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. ,
2nd A pril, 1919.