Coll 6/9 'Jeddah Reports Jany 1931–' [‎321v] (643/802)

c
16
^ r
Chapter VIII.— Slavery.
222. Five male and three female slaves took refuge in the Legation in May
and June. They were disposed of as follows :—
Manumitted and repatriated : 3 males.
Locally manumitted : 1 male and 1 female.
Left the Legation voluntarily before being dealt with : 1 male.
On hand at end of June : 2 females.
223. The eases of two women of presumed Abyssinian origin were referred
by telegraph to His Majesty’s Minister in Addis Ababa, in pursuance of the
arrangements recommended last year (November-December report, paragraph 78),
with a request that he should ascertain whether the Ethiopian Government would
make itself responsible for them. The matter was still pending at the end of June
and seemed unlikely to go smoothly owing to the difficulty of supplying adequate
particulars, a difliculty likely to arise in the case of all slaves captured in early
childhood and brought up in Arabia.
224. The Hejazi Mission in London made no attempt to reopen the question
of Royai slaves nor was it adverted to in Jedda. The mission took with them as
servant an ex-slave, possibly though not certainly manumitted ad hoc. He proved
an intelligent observer of things seen on the tour.
Chapter IX:— Miscellaneous.
Legation Staff.
225. His Majesty’s Minister returned to Jedda on the 30th May, as already
stated. Probationer Vice-Consul Gamble arrived on the 6th May to take up the
post of an acting vice-consul, attached to the Legation, for the sole purpose of
studying Arabic, subject to a proviso that he might be employed for a strictly
limited time daily on other work in order to learn the routine. Mr. Hope Gill and
Mr. Furlonge both proceeded on leave on the 3rd June, a coincidence resulting
from Mr. Hope Gill's long detention during Sir A. Ryan's absence.
226. The Malay pilgrimage officer returned to Malaya on the 14th May.
There were some changes in the subordinate personnel of the medical section.
Deportation.
227. Certain questions of principle connected with deportation were
discussed in a Foreign Office despatch to Jedda of the 4th May. In view of the
arbitrary attitude sometimes taken up by the Hejazi authorities in connexion
with the deportation of British subjects, the Legation was authorised, if it should)
think it desirable, to endeavour to obtain some reciprocal agreement with the
Hejazi Government for a more rigid application of the usual international
procedure, but the Foreign Office expressed the view, which Sir A. Ryan shared,
that it would be better, instead of inviting a general discussion of principles, to
try to get that Government to apply such practice in individual cases.
228. In one case the Sudan Government sent to Jedda a person, believed to
be a Hejazi, who had entered the Sudan irregularly, without awaiting the formal
assent of the Hejazi Government. The latter asked rather insistently that he
should be sent back to the Sudan, but it was possible to put the matter to them in
such a way that they did not return to the charge up to the 30th June. The man
was at least half-crazy and had assumed many names (including that of President
Hindenburg) at various times, so that his actual origin was hard to determine.