File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎232v] (473/834)

limited circle of recipients. The Arab Bureau soon learned that
its publication was in gratifying, but very inconvenient, demand.
It began to go the round of large departments, both Military
and Civil ; it was'not always kept within official precincts ; and
unauthorised knowledge of its existence led to certain demands
to see it regularly, which could not be resisted. Towards the
end of 1917 the list of recipients was revised and restricted, and
other precautions were taken to preclude the dangers of over
circulation ; but some uncertainty how far it goes still remains
to render the task of editing delicate and difficult.
This uncertainty, added to the comparative slowness of the
production of this Bulletin, and the ever increasing interval
which the Editor knows must elapse between the date of its
production and the date of its delivery into the hands of most
recipients, led to considerable modification of its original purpose.
Instituted as a Summary of the latest Arab Intelligence, it has
developed rather into a medium of considered appreciations. Its
actual reason for existence, as it appears to the present writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping.
(its first editor, who has continued to edit it ever since except
during certain intervals of absence from Cairo) is threefold.
Firstly, it aims at giving reasoned, and as far as possible
definitive, summaries of Intelligence, primarily about the Hejaz and
the area of the Arab Revolt (Cairo being in closer touch with this
than with other Arab areas), and secondarily about the other
Arab-speaking countries-—such summaries to be compiled, as far
as possible, by those in possession of all news, secret or other
wise, but not necessarily to contain all that news. In practice,
however, it has not been found possible for the staff, to deal
equally with all, or nearly all, the Arab-speaking area. Arab
Africa, foi instance, for which it is dependent on the Force in
Egypt s Intelligence and the Frontier Districts Administration,
has passed more and more out the Bulletin’s purview. That
part of Syria, which is still in enemy hands, can hardly be dealt
with at all to any good purpose. Mesopotamia and Iraq are left
to the M.E.F. and the Mesopotamian Political Department,
except as regards affairs east of the Euphrates. On most of the
Grulf regions, for which we are dependent on the Government of
ndia, information is seldom vouchsafed. In the beginnino’ the
Arab Bulletin had-taken on too wide a field : and some distant
areas outside the special competence of its members have had to
be jettisoned—-for example, Persia. Others, like Abyssinia and
oomaliland, which were introduced later into its scope, had better
ae dropped out of it again, since the Arab Bureau can add little
or nothing to the official reports circulated independently.
Secondly, the Arab Bulletin aims at giving authoritative
appreciations of political situations and questions in the area with
which it Can deal at first hand.
Thirdly, it aims at recording, and so preserving, all fresh
historical data concerning Arabs and Arab-speaking lands, and
incidentally, rescuing from oblivion any older facts which may