Page:The Commercial Future of Baghdad (1917).djvu/9

 6 should not have considerable reservoirs as it had in the past.

"The development of Baghdad has been checked by the bad sanitary conditions, causing frightful outbreaks of cholera, and by the artificial restrictions imposed by the Turks. For the last forty years practically such of the male population as could not pay exemption were carried off for long terms of service with the colours. Fifteen per cent. never survived the life in the pestilential barracks, and the rest returned broken men.

"An English medical missionary at Mosul told me that if he could have charge of the sanitation of the place the population would be doubled in fifteen years, because there is such a high birth-rate.

"Remove the restrictions, and the population of Baghdad, which was about 140,000 before the war, and practically a commercial population, would be doubled also.

"Government, as a rule, is a plus quantity, but Turkish Government is always a minus quantity. During the last years of the eighteenth century in Northern Mesopotamia, when the country was in a condition of anarchy, tempered by feudalism, the population was more than it is now.

"An increasing population in the near future means that more labour will be available for irrigation works. One does not want to raise false hopes—but there is no doubt that the land