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Show BRITAIN'S INTERESTS IN THE PERSIAN GULF AREA It Is perhaps not generally realized how Important the future of Mesopo tamla is to the British or why they originally sent an expedition there which has since developed into a more ambitions campaign. Ever since the Napoleonic period British influence and interests have been supreme from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf, and this was the one quarter of the gloln-where gloln-where they successfully held off thp German trader with his political backing. back-ing. It will be recalled that early in Queen Victoria's reign Great Britain engaged in a war with Persia, and landed troops at Bushire in assertion of their rights. Ever since they have policed the Persian Gulf, put down piracy, slave and gun-running, and lighted the places dangerous to navigation navi-gation These interests having been entrusted to Ihe Government of Iidla. news affecting them seldom finds itc way into Western papers. Previous to the yar a line of British steamers plied regularly up the River Tigris to Bagdad, the center of the caravan trade with Persia. The foreign trad' of this town alone in 1912 amounted lo ?19.000 000, and it was nearly al In the hands of merchants in Great Britain or India. Germany exported $500,000 worth of goods there annually. annual-ly. Besra, farther down the river, ex ports annually about 75.000 tons of dates, valued at 2,900,000. It alsr does a large export trade In wheat I A large Irrigation scheme was part ly completed before the war, near th ancient town of Babylon, under the dl rection of a famous Anglo-Indian en gineer. Sir William Willcocks. When finished it was to cost $105,000,000 and was expected to reclaim some 2 -800,000 acres of land of great produc-tlbillty produc-tlbillty It will, therefore, be seen J that Britain had some considerable j stake in the country. In addition to E this, the British government, shortly I before the war, invested $10,000.0001 in acquiring control of the Anglo-Pers- P Ian oil fields, which is the principal I source of supply for oil fuel for their (j navy. By this means they avoided the jj risk of great American corporations u cornering the supply of oil fuel and fl holding up their navy. John Bull up-1 occasion shows some gleamings ofB shrewdness. This deal is on a pari with their purchase of sufficient shares to control the Suez Canal. The Anglo-Persian oil fields are situated across the border in Persia, and the oil is led in pipes down the Karam i River valley, a tributary of the com-1 blued Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The native tribes in the neighborhood neighbor-hood were subsidized to protect the pipe-line, or, rather, to leave it alone From "The Anglo-Russian Campaign In Turkey." |