pair, "but the introduction
of Mohammedans from other countries where the climatic conditions of
Irak prevail."

That narrows the field to India and Egypt, and drives Turco-German
policy upon the horns of a dilemma:

"The colonists must either remain subjects of a foreign Power, a
solution which could not be considered for an instant by any Turkish
Government, or else they must become Turkish subjects--"

a condition which, to Indians and Egyptians, as well as Germans, would
be prohibitive. No one who has known good government would exchange it
for Ottoman government without the Capitulations as a guarantee.

The Ottoman Government has its own characteristic view. In a memorandum
on railways and reclamation, published by the Ministry of Public Works
in 1909, a _resume_ is given of the Willcocks scheme.

"In due time," the memorandum proceeds, "a comprehensive scheme for the
whole of Mesopotamia must be carried out, but, apart from the question
of expense, it is clear that the public works involved will not be
justified until Turkey is in a position to colonise these extensive
districts, and this question cannot be considered till we have succeeded
in getting rid of the Capitulations."

This is the Ottoman pretension. Egypt, rid of the Osmanli, and India,
where he never ruled, have kept their ancient wealth of harvests and
population, and have man-power to spare for the reclamation of the
_Sawad_. All the means are at hand for bringing the land to life--the
water, the engineer, the capital, the labour; only the Ottoman
pretension stands in the way, and condemns the _Sawad_ to lie dead and
unharvested so long as it endures.

"The last voyage I made before coming to this country," wrote Sir
William Willcocks at Bagdad in 1911, "was up the Nile, from Khartum to
the great equatorial lakes. In this most desperate and forbidden region
I was filled with pride to think that I belonged to a race whose sons,
even in this inhospitable waste of waters, were struggling in the face
of a thousand discouragements to introduce new forest trees and new
agricultural products and ameliorate in some degree the conditions of
life of the naked and miserable inhabitants. How should I have felt if,
in traversing the deserts and swamps which to-day represent what was the
richest and most famous tract of the world, I had thought that I was a
scion of a race in whose hands God had placed, for hundreds of years,
the destinies of this great c