File 1711/1920 'Mesopotamia: General Circulars. - 1920' [‎62r] (128/591)

violation of the principles upon which we entered
into a covenant with other nations of the world
in the League of Nations that those should be
considerations which are determining British or
any other policy. We have no legal footing in
Mesopotamia whatsoever, and the only power that
- can give us a legal footing, according to the
solemn covenant we have entered into with all
the other powers in the world, is the League of
Nations. It is their mandatory, and by that only,
that,we have any right to deal with Mesopotamia,
* either from a military, political, or economic point
of View. It is for 1 them to decide the terms and
the limits of the. mandate to be given. Has any
such mandate been given ?. So far as I know it
has not. It seems to me that we are maintaining
a large military - force, building military railways,
appropriating land and developing Civil admini
stration on' the Anglo-Indian- model, and that is,
as it were, forestalling the'ground and acting in
advance of any legal or moral authority that this
country or any other country can possess. This
, is being done at an enormous cost. ; I put it at
£35,000,000, and I should be verymuch surprised
if it was not more. This sum is largely in excess
•Of the total cost of bur army before the War broke
out.
Mr. CHURCHILL: There has been an in- ,
crease in prices.
Mr. ASQUITH : I make allowance for all
that? We arespendingall this in order to main-
tain territory to which you have no moral, or legal
title, with possibilities and potentialities, whether
economic or otherwise, which are J of the most
uncertain and indefinite character, and surely in
the judgment of. the great mass of the people of
this .country, in The present state of our territorial
; commitments and financial necessity, it is wholly
beyond our power as;a nation to add to the
burdens under which we are already- suffering,
it is true that in days gone by Mesopotamia was
a rich country, but it has suffered for centuries
from devastation and misgovernment, and proba
bly from climatic and possibly geological changes,
which make it a very different place from the
Mesopotamia Of which we read in the history of
the past. Whatever, may be its possibilities of
resurrection, reconstruction, or revitalisation, it is
certainly not a duty which it is' incumbent upon
us to take upon our already overburdened shoul
ders. If the League of. Nations so desires and
prescribes, * let us be willing , to consider, and
it may' be to accept, any mapdate they impose
upon us. You may be inclined, to say this is
purely destructive criticism, but let me make a
constructive point. I quite realise that we are the
natural persons to whom that mandate should be
assigned.
Mr. C. PALMER : Could we do it any better
under a mandate ?
Mr. ASQUITH : The mandate, in my opinion,
ought to be,'confined, so far as our direct adminis
tration and responsibility is concerned, to those
parts of Mesopotamia which are within reach of
the'‘Persian Gulf, and which roughly correspond
to what I describe as the zone of Basra.,
The PRIME MINISTER: Would that in
clude Baghdad?
Mr. ASQUITH : No. I do pot think it would.
. I will not say what the precise boundary would
be because it is difficult to assign. The remainder
of" Mesopotamia, and certainly Mosul, ought to be
placed under native, indigenous administration
with assistance and advice. We have 1 a good
precedent irthe case of some of the countries on
the Anglo-Indian frontier. Take, for example,
Beluchistan, where we maintain no military force,
but with the assistance and advice of British
b
agents and British officers, there is a force raised,
levied, and maintained by themselves, with the
operations of which we have no direct concern.
That, l believe, would be a statesmanlike settle-
ment of the mandate of Mesopotamia. It would
certainly cut down both the responsibility and
cost, so far as this country is concerned, within
reasonable and even moderate dimensions, and
we should no longer have to contemplate Such
possibilities as are before us now of contributing
£30,000.000 or perhaps £40,000,000 out of our
; own taxation in a country of 2,000,000 inhabitants
with speculative and doubtful resources, and, at
any rate, we should have a clear conscience in
regard to the mandatory of the League of Nations
in the discharge of such duties as that mandate
may impose upon us.
I believe that to be a right and wisesolution of
this difficult aiid thorny problem, and I could not
possibly assent to a Vote such as this which, oh
the admission of the Secretary of State for War,
would amount to 624,000,000 with other items
which are necessary and consequential to it, and
which will; certainly come to £30,000,000, and
may rise to £40,000,000. This. sum is to be spent
upon a venture of this kind as to which we have
not, at this moment, received any moral or legal
authority, and which is in noway imposed-upon
us either by our obligations or by the promises*
we have made in the past. Under, these circum
stances I feel it my duty to move a reduction of
this Vote by 61,000,000. -
MR. ORMSBY GORE : Ibave listened with
great attention, to the speech-of the right hom-
Gentleman opposite, and I am somewhat surprised
that he advocates the heroic policy of withdrawal
from Mesopotamia and concentration. I believe
if that policy were'carried ont you would be no
more forward in dealing with the settlement of
Turkish rule in Mesopotamia than you have been
in the past. I am perfectly certain if that policy 1
were carried out, and we withdrew to Basra; it (
would only be a few .months before we had. to
undertake,again military, operations to Mosul in
order to bring the country to something like law
and order. I do not think bur expenditure on
Mesopotamia can be reduced, in that, way by the,
simple,policy of withdrawal, and our expenditure
there can only be reduced by establishing such
political conditions in the country from the outset
as will enable that country to become self-support
ing in the very hear future. I believe, that can
be done. That it has been done' during: the last
six months, I very much doubt. My regret 'is
| that the telegram* that has been read 'but . by the
! Secretary of State for India was not/read out six
months ago. I regret that we have not, from the
very beginning, from the time of the Armistice,
adopted the policy, which the Government have
now been driven by public opinion in this country
to adopt, and not only public opinion, but by the
visible effects of rebent administration in Meso
potamia. I believe that the announcement that
was read out in the House this afternoon will go
far to enable a reduction in our expenditure in
Mesopotamia. The framing of an organic law
and to set up an Arab Administration in the able
hands and under-the guidance of Sir Percy Cox is
not enough: If we are to reduce expenditure in
Mesopotamia we have to get rid of this enormous
Indian garrison.
- The point, above all others,' which I desire
to make in this Debate this afternoon is that the
continued maintenance of a large force of Indian
troops in Mesopotamia is the main cause of the .
political difficulties in that country to-day. It is
notorious—indeed, it is historic*—that /the Arab
and the Indian do not get on well together because