The war was “to make the world safe for Democracy.” Has Democracy shown itself capable of dealing with the world? Its weaknesses are, first, that it cannot trust its agents. No race on earth has such administrators as the British; and the writer, who has been privileged to live with some of them and see their working, only hopes some day to be able to tell the story of what he has seen, that England may have at least the chance of knowing what manner of men they are who serve her in despised Mesopotamia. Yet, because one man in a hundred may show himself no true sahib, and may fall under temptations that he has never been trained to bear, Democracy at home hampers the ninety-nine good men for that reason; and will not allow the man on the spot, who knows, to act on his own judgment in crises, without delaying reference to those who neither know nor can know.
Second, Democracy, as represented by its leaders at home, gives pledges lightly, and abandons them. “Its vows are lightly spoken; its faith is hard to bind.” In the East, decision and firmness come first. A governor who has these will always be respected, even if he be cruel as no Englishman can be. Let him be just as well, and he is worshipped. But how can he be firm and decisive when those at home will not let him act for himself, and send him ever-varying orders from Downing Street?
It is this conduct in the British Government; this failure, not in the men on the spot, but in those at home, that calls[{415}] out all the worst qualities in Turk and Arab, Armenian and Assyrian. Few people know better than the writer how annoying those latter types can be, but they can respect and serve a Government that knows its own mind. It is because of this evil spirit that we have ourselves evoked that some now clamour for the complete evacuation of Mesopotamia.
This is a claim to which in honour we cannot yield. Even apart from the guardianship that we have definitely accepted under treaty, we have contracted a moral obligation that it is impossible for us to disown. We did not make war on the inhabitants of Mesopotamia; we came to free them from the domination of the Turk. Having so freed them, we cannot honourably leave them till fresh authority has arisen to control the disorderly elements that swarm in every quarter of that land. That was our pledge to those who have stood by us through good and ill.
We have cast out one unclean spirit; now, if we leave the house empty, seven other spirits more wicked than the Turk will enter in, and the last state of Mesopotamia will be worse than the first.
Printed by Lowe & Brydone (Printers) Ltd., London, N.W. 1.[{416}][{417}]
GLOSSARY
Abba. An Arab cloak. See p. [9].
Agha. “Master.” The title of a petty chieftain, chiefly in use among the Kurds.