Coll 6/19 'Arabia: (Saudi Arabia) Hejaz-Nejd Annual Report.' [‎162r] (324/540)

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(4) Netherlands.
83. The Dutch financial adviser engaged by the Saudi Government under
the auspices of the Netherlands Government in 1932 was as unsuccessful as
might have been expected. He ruined his health into the bargain and, having
finally left Jedda on the 18th May, died in Holland on the 7th July.
84. There were no signs of any Dutch political activity during 1933 in
regard to Saudi Arabia. The Netherlands Legation in Jedda seems to concern
itself with little but its pilgrimage work, the volume of which was again
diminished by a further heavy falling off in the number of pilgrims from the
Dutch East Indies. If the Saudi Government felt any surprise at the conclusion
of a treaty between the Netherlands Government and the Imam of the Yemen,
when the Dutch Charge d’Affaires was in Sana last March, it was well contained.
They cannot have failed to be impressed by this action on the part of a
Government who have never made a treaty with Ibn Saud, and they may have
felt some little discomfort at the end of the year, when it became known that,
notwithstanding the acuteness of the Saudi-Yemen situation, M. Adriaanse was
contemplating another visit to Sana early in 1934 for the exchange of ratifications
of the treaty signed last March.
85. Ibn Saud, though apparently guarded in his attitude towards the
Hadhramaut (see paragraph 54), takes an interest in the quarrel, having its roots
in that region, which rages in Java between the rival Moslem factions. One of
them are the Seyyids, who claim descent from Huseyn the son of Ali. The most
vigorous exponent of opposition to them is an association called Al-Irshad. The
cause of the latter was warmly espoused towards the end of 1932 by one of two
journalists, who are among the emissaries used by the Saudi Government to
stimulate the flow of pilgrims from the Dutch East Indies. This man, a rolling
stone from Iraq named Yunus Bahri, seems, however, to have outrun the wishes
of Ibn Saud, for the King was reported in March 1933 to have addressed a letter
to Al-Irshad, which produced at least an outward mitigation of that party’s
animosity towards the Seyyids, and moved their counter-association to send a
grateful letter to the King. It is probable that the religious and political
sympathies of the latter would lie with Al-Irshad, but his greatest interest of all
is to see a revival of the pilgrimage from the Dutch East Indies. That, and
perhaps his desire for peace among Arabs in the homeland of the combatants, may
explain his readiness to exert a composing influence.
(5) Soviet Russia.
86. Much excitement was caused in Jedda in February 1933 by a report
that the Soviet had at last arrived at a commercial understanding with the Saudi
Government. It was understood that the Soviet Minister, using as a lever the still
outstanding claim for benzine and petroleum to the value of £30,000 supplied
under a special arrangement in 1931, had secured a partial or total removal of
the ban on direct trade from Russia and had agreed that the old debt should be
paid off by the total or partial remission of customs duty on goods newly imported,
a mode of payment much used by the Saudi Government in the case of their
creditors. There was much alarm in local circles as to the effect on other sources
of supply and on local merchants of any large influx of Russian goods, perhaps
to be supplied under some sort of loan arrangement and to be marketed no one
knew how.
87. On the 18th March His Majesty’s Minister questioned Fuad Bey Hamza
as to what had actually happened. Fuad Bey stated that, when the Saudi mission
visited Moscow at the end of May 1932, the Soviet Government had expressed a
desire for three things, viz., a removal of the embargo on trade from Russia to
Saudi Arabia, a treaty of friendship and a commercial treaty. They had
expressed readiness to accommodate the Saudi Government in a manner which
Fuad Bey described vaguely. His language suggested that the offer was to make
a loan in the shape of goods on terms of either long or short credit. The Saudi
Government, he said, were unwilling to commit themselves for more than a short
term, say, three years. Fuad Bey admitted that the exchange of views in Moscow
had led to further negotiations, and that they had had a result, but only one
result, namely, the removal of the embargo, which had not, however, yet become
effective as the Soviet Government had undertaken not to ship goods until the
Saudi Government had had time to organise selling arrangements.