Coll 6/91 'Saudi Arabia. Policy of H.M.G. Qn. of credits and guarantee of assistance to Ibn Saud.' [‎334v] (669/680)

2
asserts that his friendship with His Majesty’s Government is based on his convic
tion that his own country stands or falls with Great Britain. It would be possible,
of course, for a statesman, and not merely an oriental statesman, to create and
maintain this attitude as a facade, and behind it to be working for our undoing,
but I think that the King’s actions for the last few years are sufficient to dispose
ot this hypothesis. There was reason to believe that when the Palestine revolt^*
was at its worst he was persuaded into agreeing to let the malcontents have some
rifles and ammunition, but when one realises what pressure must have been put
upon him, by the Arabs and by his own religious convictions, one hesitates to
judge this harshly, especially when one remembers the efforts he had made to keep
the peace while the question was being studied, and the advice he had frequently
given to His Majesty’s Government to move in a direction in which, with the issue
of the White Paper of 1939, they have now moved. The perfect friend would,
of course, have refused all help to the Palestinians and, if necessary, risked his
own position, but I consider Ibn Sand comparatively, as he considers His
Majesty’s Government, and I find him, as he finds us, able to stand comparison.
In particular, after reading some ten years of the Persia print as a preparation
for a new post, my opinion of Ibn Saud’s qualities has gone up rather than down.
4. Ibn Saud has certain grave faults. His attitude towards slavery, and
especially towards women slaves, is difficult to excuse; his treatment of his huge
family of sons is unwise and must lead to embarrassment, if not in his own time,
in the reign of his successor; and his indifference to the financial side of
administration is a serious defect in a ruler. But, on the whole, he has shown
himself a great ruler. No man who had not had a firm hold over himself, as well
as over his people, could have steered the course in regard to Palestine which he
has steered for the last two or three years. It is not that he is cynical: the depths
of his personal feelings could not be doubted by anyone who had heard him repeat
some of the Quranic texts about the Jews, or seen him trying to suppress his tears
at the wireless announcement of the hanging of an Arab for participation in the
armed movement in Palestine; but he is not led away by his feelings, but keeps
his eyes fixed steadfastly on the main lines of the policy which he has adopted.
I do not think that the possession of a certain greatness of mind can be denied him.
5. I am aware that there are English men and women who “ adopt ” some
foreign country whose real or alleged virtues they never cease to praise, and whose
interests they support exclusively, and that I risk being classed in this respect
with the Aubrey Herberts, the Miss Durhams, and the Gertrude Bells. But no
Englishman who has lived within 45 miles of Mecca for five years could have any
illusions about the “noble Arab,” though, perhaps, the exploiters of the
pilgrimage have keen competitors in baseness in those Iraqi politicians, who, it
appears, sponsor the view in the local school-books that the independence of Iraq
was won, not from the Turks by the Allies, but from the British by the Arabs.
No, my good opinion of Ibn Saud is not part of an illusion about the Arabs, but
is based on my experience of his actions for three years and of some other
countries for various periods. For instance, all orientals are supposed to be highly
suspicious, but I have found Ibn Saud less suspicious than the French in Morocco;
again, the Soviet officials with whom I had to deal for nearly four years serve to
elevate the character of Ibn Saud by contrast to a high level of probity and good
faith.
6. The personal relations between Ibn Saud and the British officials with
whom he has been brought into contact over a period of nearly thirty years have
been almost uniformly good, and I should be glad to know that my official
relations would always be as easy in future as they have been here. I feel a real
regret that I have probably had my last talk with ibn Saud, and shall never again
listen to one of his long monologues, rambling and repetitive but by no means
pointless, and none the less sound on European politics because all foreign names
but the most simple are beyond his capacity, so that even the ^familiar
“ Inghilterra’’ becomes “ qandara,’’ which in the mouth of any other Arab
means “ bridge ’’; “ Czecho-Slovakia ’’ is a despairing wave of the hand; and a
certain Miss O’Looney, who flits in and out of the talk like some engaging’friend
of Mr. Flurry Knox’s, turns out to be an eminent Italian statesman."
7. Ibn Saud being a firm and capable ruler and. as I think, a loyal friend
to His Majesty’s Government, it is naturally a matter of great importance how