TCD MS 3414 folio 14 recto
[1915]
much of their vileness that it is impossible for me to try & discover any good points in their favour, even if they existed, which I doubt. There is little doubt that if Mesopotamia eventually remains under British rule it will become a great & rich country perhaps even supplanting Egypt. Sir William Wilcox has evolved a great irrigation scheme which is to control the vast floods & to put the huge volume of flood water to the more useful purpose of irrigating the barren stretches of land which are waterless all year round. But to bring this scheme into operation, the upper reaches of the Tigris & Euphrates on a line drawn West & east of Baghdad must be in British hands, for it is only here that the ingenuity of man could ever hope to control the floods. Even so the problem of dealing with floods which are caused only by perculation will still exist, but it is hoped that by regulating the water in the upper reaches of these two rivers, that the water underground in the lower levels of the Basra vilayet will be considerably reduced in volume. The two leading trading companies at present located in