Ancient Land Blossoms Again

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 206, 19 November 1927, Page 16

Ancient Land Blossoms Again

IRAQ’S PROGRESS WHERE BABYLON FLOURISHED

Anybody who flies over the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in an airplan© can look down upon the traces of a great system of irrigation which was just as wonderful for the ancient world as the Nile dam and the Panama canal are for our modern times. Scores of mounds in the desert mark the sites of cities that once flourished and are now hidden by shifting sands. To realise the place of Mesopotamia in ancient times we must think of Europe in our own day. It was such a centre of trade, culture and political power that Babylon has become a byword for materialism and worldly ease. Population of 2,500,000 To-day there are only 2,560,060 people in the country which once boasted a population as great as that of France. Bagdad, Bosrah and Mosul are the most important centres and yet they are more like overgrown than modern cities. Several hundred thousand people are wandering herdsmen and the villages are few and P°®T* The fortunes of war have formed Mesopotamia into the class A mandate of Iraq. The government is a limited monarchy with King Feisal on tn throne. The British are in control oi the mandate, but they have made a liberal treaty which assures Iraq oi autonomous power. . Probably the greatest airplane station in the British Empire is in Iraq and Bagdad has become the bailway station for the air route from Egypt to India. _ „ Bagdad a Centre of Traffic Five years ago it took six eet r to travel from Bagdad to Beirut. was still farther off. To-day a traveu can go from Teheran to Bagdad in IO days and reach Beirut in another hours. The military road across r ' sia is increasing commerce with ir and making Bagdad a centre of o land traffic. . Irrigation, cotton growing. impr° ment of the herds and agricultural velopment of all kinds are unper *■- problems to be dealt with. -^ lve must be improved, motor roads structed and the railroad line c pleted, so as to join the three c cities. A modern judiciary system, * efficient department of health adequate school system must he veloped. . , The greatest needs of the lana * for money and trained men. future of the country will depend 2an the way in which proper leader be provided. A representative o Minister of Education visited American University of Beirut ir L, uary. While talking with him ft, dent Bayard Dodge expressedt„• that Iraq might prosper. The u -* nd visitor turned to him suddenly said, “The future of Iraq depends vr your university.”