Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1921.djvu/1403

 INSTRUCTION — FINANCE — PRODUCTION — COMMERCE 135L

standardization of weights and measures, health service, education, agri- culture, and the maintenance of law and order.

Instruction. — Ninety Government schools of all types, including four municipal State-aided schools, a teachers' training school, and a survey school have been opened ; extension classes in agriculture have also been started.

Finance.— Revenue, 1918-19, 2,080,000:. ; expenditure, 1,177,000/ Hevenne, 1919-20, 3,437,000*. ; expenditure, 3,692,000/.

Production- — Mesopotamia is a land of great potentialities, oil being its chief product. Petroleum wells are being worked at Gazara, near Mosul, and at Mandali, north-east of Baghdad. At Hit, on the Euphrates, are asphalt deposits. The soil of the country is rich, and agriculture is oeing developed, especially by means of irrigation. Wheat, barley, cotton, date palms, and ground nuts can be produced.

Commerce.— Imports and exports in 1919 were as follows : —

Imports

Baghda.l

9,078,16t

£

2,342,635 4,807,833

Total

11,010,404

Cotton goods form nearly 50 per cent, of the imports of the country ; sugar is next in importance. Large quantities of both commodities were re- exported into Persia. Carpets and grain were the principal exports.

Communications. — The principal seaport for Mesopotamia is Basra, situated 70 miles up the Shatt-el-Arab, at the head of the Persian Gulf. Before the war the rivers Tigris and Euphrates formed the only means of through communication to Baghdad ami other parts of the country. There were caravan routes across the desert, and a few poor roads ; the Baghdad railway, built on the European 4ft. 8^in. gauge, was in course of construction, the section from Baghdad to Samarra, 75 miles in length, having been opened just before the war. During the war metre-gauge railways were built from Basra to Nasiriyah on the Euphrates, 140 miles, Basra to Amara, on the Tigris, 109 miles, and Kut-el-Amara to Baghdad, 105 miles, leaving a break of 120 miles between Amara and Kut- el-Amara. Metre-gauge lines were also built from Baghdad to near Kbanikin, 103 miles, and on to the Persian frontier, 30 miles. The standard-gauge railway from Baghdad to Samarra (75 miles) was extended to beyond Tekrit (5S miles), and branches were made from Baghdad to Hilla on the Euphrates, 58 miles, and to Dhiban, beyond Fallujah, 48 miles. There has also been laid a 2ft. 6in. gauge from Hilla on the Euphrates to Kifl, 21 miles. Since the Armistice the sections between Basra and Amara, and between Fallujah and Dhiban have been taken up, but Basra and Baghdad have been linked by a line up the Euphrates and the line to Telerit has been extended to Qalat sharqat.