Part 2III. – MESOPOTAMIA
Mesopotamia is important to the financier because of its great potential wealth. In the north, where, the rainfall is sufficient, the soil is very fertile and capable of producing wheat and cotton in great abundance; so much so that at one time in history the cottons of Mosul commanded the markets of the world. In the south is a great dry plain. Sir W. Willcocks investigated this region, and his report in 1911 said that given a system of irrigation, a huge area of from 5,000 to 6,000 square miles could be profitably cultivated. His estimated cost of irrigation: was 30,000,000 pounds Turkish or about £27,000,000 sterling, and it is thought that about 400,000 tons of cereals and one and a half, million hundredweights of cotton could be produced every year. Hence the financial groups have given this area their attention. Note their operations.
When our armies were successful in entering Mesopotamia, they were followed by the establishment of the Eastern Bank, Ltd., with its branches at Amara, Baghdad, Bahrein, Basra, Hellah and Mosul. Its chairman is Lord Balfour of Burleigh. Now this lord happened to be the chairman of the “Committee on Commercial and Industrial Policy After the War,” which sat in 1916, so that, in this capacity he would assist in shaping the Government’s policy towards finance and commerce in general, and. in his later capacity he and his company would derive any benefit which might accrue from that policy.
Cheap Indian and Egyptian Labour.
What the financiers most desire in Mesopotamia is a big population and a strong government. The Arabs like to roam and are not amenable to discipline; they do not form a cheap supply of labour for the financial magnates. The latter, therefore, advocate not only a Prussian military government, but the importation of cheap labour from India and Egypt! The Arabs object, hence the present trouble and the denial of the freedom which the Allies solemnly promised to the Arabs.
The vested interests are still winning. No sooner was the war carried into Mesopotamia than a new irrigation canal (a continuation of the Willcocks’ scheme), capable of irrigating 300,000 acres of land, was cut; being finished by the end of 1918. There was not sufficient Arab labour locally willing to be coerced, so Indian labour corps were imported and set to work. Since the armistice; further strides have been made. The British Cotton Growers’ Association have been brought on the scene and are cultivating large areas with seed, which they hope will produce a long staple cotton equal to the best American or Egyptian cotton. This time they have introduced the Fellahin from Egypt to do the necessary labour. The generalisation that our army is being kept in Mesopotamia at the present time to enable the capitalist to employ cheap imported Egyptian and Indian labour is (apart from the oil question) much nearer the truth than any other.
Oil
There are two oil bearing districts in Mesopotamia: one lies to the north east of Basra and extends to the Persian frontier, being a continuation of the South Persian oilfield; the other stretches over a considerable country and skirts the east of Mosul. Under the secret agreements of 1918 Great Britain, France and Tsarist Russia made one of the objects of the war the parcelling out of Turkish territory among themselves: Great Britain was to have the south, while the north, with the Mosul oilfields, were to fall within the French sphere of influence. There was then no talk of mandates; it was brutal, open robbery.
The oilfields of the Basra region are worked by the Anglo Persian Oil Company, to which reference has already been made.
The oilfields of Mosul are worked by the Turkish Petroleum Company, Ltd. This company was originally called the African and Eastern Concessions, Ltd. Its name was changed in 1912, when it acquired from the Deutsche Bank certain rights of prospecting for oil in the Ottoman Empire. Its capital was £160,000, and was subscribed as follows: (1) Anglo-Persian Oil Co., 50 per cent.; (2) Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Co., Ltd. 25 per cent.; (3) Deutsche Bank, 25 per cent. The Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Co. has the greater part of its shares held by the Royal Dutch Shell Co., which, as readers probably know, is one of the centres of the famous Shell Combine. Also part of the shares of the Turkish Petroleum Co. are now held by the British Trade Corporation, an extensive banking company operating in the East and owning the National Bank of Turkey. Thus the great interests behind the Turkish Petroleum Co. are mainly those British interests predominant in Persia and. Turkey generally and the Shell Combine, whose champion, Mr. Deterling, sits on its directorate.
The main feature to notice about the Turkish Petroleum Co. is that its concessions at Mosul have been granted since the beginning of the war, and that its directors and interests are connected with many important railway, armament, mining and banking companies in Great Britain. The connection between the two is obvious.
Mandates and Oil.
What is a mandate? It is a trust held under the League of Nations whereby the mandatory Power takes charge of a backward country, not for its own aggrandisement, but as a sacred trust to be used to help the inhabitants of that country – in the interests of civilisation. Hear what the very candid Saturday Review has to say on the subject of mandates in its issue February 8, 1919:
In the old wicked days of “spoils to the victors” there would have been in language, which nowadays shocks your League of Nations professor, a division of the spoils. That, however, in the ears of democracy is flat blasphemy. Something, therefore, must be invented, which shall be annexation, but shall not be called so .... annexation must be camouflaged under the pretence of a mandate of trusteeship. Was there ever a more arrogant piece of democratic humbug than the mandate?
The remarks of the Saturday Review have been proved correct. Great Britain is the mandatory power in Mesopotamia. In a high moral tone she has informed the United States that she does not seek to exploit the petroleum resources of the country for herself, that no private interests are involved, that the resources of Mesopotamia will be secured for the Arab State. The mandate also states that there shall be no advantage given to her own nationals in matters of “taxation, commerce, navigation, the exercise of industries or professions, etc.” This is nonsense. Mandate is indeed merely a respectable name for annexation. As the United States has already pointed out to Great Britain, discrimination in favour of her own nationals has already taken place. The San Remo petroleum agreement provides that any private petroleum company operating in Mesopotamia shall be under permanent British control. The British and French have an agreement whereby Great Britain shall, have 75 per cent. and France 25 per cent. of the oil of Mosul: the 1916 secret agreements are only altered, not lapsed.
The fact is that the American and British financiers are quarrelling exactly as the British and Germans began to quarrel 15 years ago. The American oil interests are organised in the Standard Oil Co.; the British have allied themselves to the Shell Combine. The United States secured railway, concessions in Turkey, and the Standard Oil Co. wants to use them to have a finger in the Mosul oilfields, The British interests are determined to keep them out. At a dinner given in April, 1920, at which all the oil interests of Britain were represented, Sir C. Greenaway referred in particular to their friends in the Royal Dutch and Shell Co., Sir Marcus Samuel and Mr. Deterling. A study of the Shell Combine shows that British interests are now included, that it is supreme in the Middle East; and the concessions granted to the Turkish Petroleum Co., together with the complaints of the oil interests of our dependence on American controlled oil (70 per cent. of our total supplies in pre war days), indicate that the conflict is now in progress.
Moreover, the activities of the oil companies in Mesopotamia outlined above show clearly that the vested interests are operating as freely and as brazenly as if Mesopotamia were annexed, while the suppression of the Arabs could not be greater if they were legally British subjects.
IV. – GOVERNMENT BY FINANCIERS AND OIL KINGS.
Our Foreign Office is run by vested interests. An analysis of the vested interests in the Middle East shows that they are interconnected with almost all the powerful groups in this country. Hence, when necessary, the interests in the Middle East can obtain the support of a vast variety of financial interests in Great Britain. This alone explains our policy in Mesopotamia at the present time, for it is not only expensive at a time when we cannot afford it, but it is as idiotic and as contrary to public opinion as is possible. The explanation is that the vested interests have and are forcing it against the better judgment of the Government. Behold the relations between some of these interests.
The Anglo Persian Oil Co., Ltd., is owned, to the extent of one fourth its shares, by the British Government. Presumably that is to secure oil supplies, for it makes not the slightest difference to the operations of the financiers in that company. The British Government is represented on the board by Lord Inchcape and Sir E. H. Packe. (This and the following facts refer to the year 1920.) Now Lord Inchcape is connected with a large number of powerful companies, such as the P. and O. Corporation, the P. and O. Steam Navigation Co., Anderson, Green and Co., Doodputtle Tea Co., Great Western Railway Co., Eastern Telegraph Co., Marine Insurance Co., Royal Bank of Scotland, Suez Canal Co., Scottish Oils, Ltd., and over a dozen others. It is only natural that his colleagues on these companies will exert their influence in his favour in any Eastern policy which he supports. Similarly the trustees for the debenture holders are Lords Lamington and Southborough. Lord Lamington is connected with the Edinburgh Assurance Co., the London Guarantee and Accident Co., etc., while Lord Southborough is connected with Armstrong Whitworth and Co., Underground Electric Railway Co., Westinghouse Brake Co., and others. Of the directors proper, Admiral Sir E.J.W. Slade is connected with nearly a dozen oil companies, the Tilbury Contracting and Dredging Co., etc. The other directors are connected with rubber, tin, mining, assurance, shipping, shipbuilding, railway, banking, etc., companies. In nearly all these cases they are directors, not merely shareholders.
The Turkish Petroleum Co., Ltd., operates in Mesopotamia. One of its directors is Mr. H.W.A. Deterling. This gentleman is a director of the Shell Transport and Trading Co., and about 18 other oil companies in various parts of the world (most of them being in the Shell combine). Sir C.E. Hambro, K.B.E., is another director: He is concerned in the Great Eastern Railway Co., the British Baltic Commercial Corporation, Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation, etc. Similarly, the British Trade Corporation’s interests in the Turkish Petroleum Company are championed by Mr. C.S. Gulbenkian, of Paris, a director of the Turkish National Bank, and concerned in the Ural Caspian Oil Corporation.
The banking interests in the Middle East are much the same. The Imperial Ottoman Bank of Turkey is practically owned by British and French shareholders. The British committee of the bank comprises the Earl of Bessboro, concerned in the Bank of Rumania, goldfields, hotel, railway, etc., companies; Viscount Goschen, concerned in the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders, banking, insurance, etc., companies; and others concerned in rubber, canal, coal, oil companies.
The National Bank of Turkey is owned by the British’ Trade Corporation, which through its directors is linked up with armament, insurance, wagon, railway, paper, and many other interests.
The chairman of the Imperial Bank of Persia is Sir H.S. Barnes, who is also a director of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co., the British and Foreign General Securities and Investment Trust, the Burma Ruby Mines, etc., and so on.
The Oil Agitation.
The oil kings have undoubtedly switched to their support all these vested interests, with which they are more or less in easy communication, in order to press the Government to adopt a policy in the Middle East favourable to them. They have engineered the agitation and secured the ear of Ministers. They have cloaked their objects in diplomatic language, and have done it gracefully. In the journal of the Institute of Petroleum Technologists for April, 1920, a report appears of a dinner given by the Institute, of whom the main guests of the evening were Sir Hamar Greenwood and Mr. W. Long. Sir Hamar was, at the time, Minister in charge of Petroleum Affairs; Mr. Long was the previous, Minister, and had formed the department. Practically all the members of the company were either directors or concerned in oil companies. Sir Charles Greenaway (director of the Anglo Persian Oil Co.), in proposing the toast, to H.M.’s Government, said:
Several of those present had for many years past urged upon the Government the enormous importance of oil to the future of the Empire, and, the vital necessity which existed for ensuring ample British supplies of that precious commodity.
Their agitation had evidently borne fruit, for Mr. W. Long, in reply, said:
Many of those present had forgotten more about oil than he (Mr. Long) had ever known. They knew the essential necessity of oil to this country .... It was only necessary to think of the supplies that had been recently opened out in Mesopotamia, in Persia, and the undeveloped oilfields of the world. He hoped they would make the country realise that one of the greatest needs of mankind was to secure in one form or another the command of those supplies which were willing to be taken.
See the game? First the oil lords capture the main power centre – the Ministry of Oil – then use that to persuade ether departments to support their policy while they bring up support from a variety of vested interests in the country. And it is, of course, all because the country needs oil: the immense oil profits – which were admitted at the meeting to have been made – have presumably no connection with the agitation!!! But in view of this statement of Mr. Long about the oil of Mesopotamia, what are we to think of the official Government statement made to the United States that Great Britain does not seek concessions for her own nationals in Mesopotamia, and that no private interests in oil are involved?
Conclusion.
There is thus plenty of evidence to support the statement that our Foreign Office is run by vested interests. Oil kings and bankers are responsible mainly for the policy of suppression in Mesopotamia and the Middle East generally: I am not prepared to blame the financiers: they are simply acting as the, vast majority of human beings would act, in their place. When a group of persons have an opportunity of making large sums of money if the Government adopts a certain policy, it is inevitable that such a group should persuade themselves that that policy is the only true and right one. A person can hypnotise himself much easier than he can hypnotise other people.
It is not to the great and powerful, but to the workers of the world that appeal must be made to prevent vested interests causing wars, great or small. If the workers had been aware of the struggles among European financiers in the Middle and Far East, in Africa, in the Balkans, which preceded the Great War, they would have seen the hypocrisy of the statement that we went into the war for the freedom of small nations. The blunt fact remains that the fight between German and Allied financiers was in progress for ten years prior to 1914 and that, during that time, the vested interests of both sides were constantly seeking to embroil their nations into war.
It is true that diplomacy is complicated by many considerations, but it is equally true that, given the will to live peacefully with the world, undeveloped and backward lands could be developed in the interests of all, without friction. And the will for peace is prevented because each group of financiers is competing with another group for concessions or commerce, quarrelling with them, dragging in the consuls and ambassadors in their quarrels, intertwining their fortunes with strategical interests, and so on, until they have the Foreign Office on their side. This game is now being played with the United States. It started with commercial rivalry, it has extended to a struggle between the Standard Oil and Shell combines in the Middle East; the financiers of the two countries are struggling against each other in the Far East. Where will it end? Is it worth the blood of a single worker as to whether a million dollars are made by an American or an Englishman in some far off land? Yet that is the true driving force of the friction. Remove that, and the national and economic interests of the nation could easily be dealt with.
Source: Independent Labour Archive
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The above perspective mirrors our today's situation in many ways. It has become more complex, only. The rules of "global monopoly" altough remained the same: Politcs always follows money, money follows an agenda. The agenda has to be hidden from public by any means.
In 1900 Turkey had been sold out to British, French and Russian interests - while those were not "British, French and Russian" at all, as all the banks in those nations worked hand in hand with their own intervowen interests - and if necessary - against their own states. German loans were granted later to assure to draw exactly those nations into war that money-interests had decided would be suitable for their OWN intentions and long term agendas.
The policy and history behind all that was made up and "polished-up" always afterwards - and had not much to do with the real cause behind all the killing and hate that has been spread intentionally AMONGST NATIONS and peoples.
As nations were replaceable.
As people were replaceable.
But not money.
Think about it.