ADEN CELEBRATES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 July 1939, Page 3

ADEN CELEBRATES

HUNDRED YEARS OF BRITISH RULE

GRATITUDE OF THE ARABS.

HOTTEST PLACE ON EARTH.

On Thursday, January 20. Aden celebrated the centenary of the first hoisting of the British flag in Southern Arabia. It was an occasion for rejoicing, not only by the British whose eyes were first, directed to the strategic possibilities of the place as a consequence of Napoleon's ambitions in Egypt, but also by the polyglot population of Aden, which has benefited enormously through British administration.

To the casual or passing traveller, Aden, the main coaling and oil-bunker-ing station between Egypt and India is a forbidding enough place, writes a correspondent of the "London Observer." It is reputed to be one of the hottest spots on earth; correspondents thence excuse their laziness on the score that the heat is such that the ink dries in the fountain-pen. Aden- is divided between the town itself and the harbour. The town lies in the crater of an extinct volcano, surrounded by rocky mountains. It is a desolate setting. Neither trees nor grass grows there. In. the winter months living is tolerable, but only the south-west monsoon from the Indian Ocean prevents the summer months from being a veritable hell. The average temperature, winter and summer, is 85deg. The bulk of the population is Arab, but there is in addition a bewildering mixture of Somalis, Hindus, Parsecs, Chinese and Jews. Five miles away from Aden proper is Tawahi or Steamer Point. It is at this fine harbour that vessels ceaselessly plying for Europe and Asia anchor. Aden and Steamer Point are joined by a road along a rocky promontory which ends in a gap in the mountain, this pass leading direct to the white city of Aden. From 1839 until 1932 Aden was administered under the Government of Bombay. It then came under the Home Government, though the great- improvement in administration which has been effected in recent years is not due wholly to that change. A great part of the credit is certainly due to the fact that the British Air Ministry, in 1928, took over Aden Colony and Protectorate from the War Office. And, too, Aden for some years now has enjoyed the administration of a singularly enlightened Governor, Sir Bernard Reilly. Aden was formally made a. Crown Colony in April, 1937. The coming of the R.A.F. has meant

all the difference in the world to Aden,

and it has been rightly claimed that airmen are performing therein the same sort of civilising mission as the Royal Navy has performed-, in the waters of the Persian Gulf and of the Red Sea.

It is not always realised that Aden has a vast hinterland, in which British relations with local rulers are governed by protectorate treaties. For years, however, these rulers were given no protection; in fact, they saw their protectors only when they came to Aden to draw their subsidies.

During the Great War the Turks were able to march almost unresisted to the very outskirts of Aden, and sat there until the Armistice. After the war the Imam, of the Yemen appeared to have designs of sweeping the British out of South-west Arabia altogether, and his warriors got within 40 miles of Aden, the appeals of the tribes enjoying protectorate treaties with the British having to go unanswered.

Then, in 1928, came the turning point. The R.A.F. did what no land force could do. They ceaselessly harried the Imam's forces, and soon had his Zeidl soldiers back in the Yemen, whence they had eagerly come. Today relations between Aden and Sanaa, the Imam's capital, arc entirely satisfactory.

But the role of the R.A.F. has not been limited to strategic purposes. They opened up the Protectorate for civilian officers from Aden in a way impossible except by aircraft. There is scarcely a tribesman in the Protectorate who does not recognise that Great Britain means to protect him, means to encourage him in the ways of peace and of such prosperity as is possible in a not richly blessed country.

It is this humanising mission of promoting the welfare of the inhabitants that Sir Bernard Reilly and his able officers are so splendidly fulfilling. The Governor is indeed beloved by his Arabs. Chronically handicapped by the lack of finance though they arc, these officers are introducing hygiene, building hospitals, schools, and roads, and in general are persuading these long isolated peoples that peace has its blessings. Quite safely it may be said that Aden Colony and Protectorate are happier today than at any time in their long history. Very characteristic is the decision that this centenary shall be celebrated by the introduction of a scheme of poor relief and by the establishment of an infant welfare clinic. The Colonial Office is assuredly doing well by the newest Crown Colony in the British Empire.