IOR/L/PS/10/568

Correspondence and papers concerning the export of wool from Baghdad and Basra in Mesopotamia [Iraq] during Britain’s military occupation of the country after the First World War. The contents of the file are a direct chronological continuation of File 3104/1915 Pt 4 ‘Mesopotamia: Trade with Baghdad & Export of wool’ (IOR/L/PS/10/567). Contents of the file include: arrangements for the export of 3,000 bales of wool from Basra to Marseilles; restrictions on the export of wool from Mesopotamia; changes in trading restrictions, including the Army Council’s insistence that all wool from Mesopotamia be imported into Britain, for distribution to its allies (specifically, France and the United States of America); a copy of a report produced by the East Indian Wool Trade Committee, dated July 1918 (ff 77-85); applications by commercial firms seeking to export wool from Mesopotamia; the Army Council’s considerations on lifting restrictions on the export of wool in February 1919. The file contains a number of items in French.

The file’s principal correspondents are: the India Office; the Foreign Office; the War Office, including the Director of Raw Materials at the War Office.

The file includes a divider which gives the subject number, the year the subject file was opened, the subject heading, and a list of correspondence references by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.