IOR/L/PS/10/749

The volume contains correspondence in the form of telegrams, letters, reports, and minutes. The correspondence is mainly about the mission of John Hewett’s [also spelled in the volume as Hewitt] to Mesopotamia. On behalf of the War Office, the mission is to examine and report to the Army Council on the financial bearings of agricultural and irrigational schemes in Mesopotamia.

Other issues discussed in the volume are the following:

• The work of the Chief Centre of Cultivation and the main corps and farming facilities in Mesopotamia
• The ‘control of expenditure and of irrigation and river conservancy’ in Mesopotamia
• Appointment of officers from India to accompany Hewett, and their proposed salaries
• The Egyptian Government agreeing to assist Hewett in Egypt and Mesopotamia
• The Civil Commissioner, Baghdad complains that the activities of Hewett’s mission interfering with his own civil duties
• Concerns raised regarding a lecture Hewett delivered at Baghdad to British officers on Indian Reform Proposals and the influence the lecture could have on the prospects of civil or military Government employment in India
• Correspondence between the War Office, the Army Council, and the India Office on whether to take any actions towards Hewett, and Hewett’s response to that.

The correspondence also includes a number of reports of the Army Agricultural Committee.

Other correspondents in the volume are: the Foreign Office, London; the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; the Under-Secretary of State for India, Political Department; the Viceroy, Army Department; the Civil Commissioner, Baghdad; and the British Delegation, Paris.