Coll 6/67(4) 'Boundaries of South Eastern Arabia and Qatar.' [‎337v] (674/843)

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intermediate line could be defined with reference to places rather than to 1
co-ordinates. He was extremely non-committal and explained that he was only
throwing out an “ idea ” of his own. Subject to this, he indicated a possible line
from say the intersection of meridian 56° E. and parallel 20° N. to run midway
through the Ramlat-al-Mughsin and thence to points approximately at the inter-w
sections of meridian 52° E. and parallel 18 c N. and of meridian 50 c E. and
parallel 17° N.
23. On a review of the whole discussion, Fuad Bey and 1 had to agree that
we had not found the basis of an agreement in principle. I said that all I could
do was to renew to him and to the King the appeal I had made on the previous
day. Fuad Bey said that he had had to overcome great difficulties in his own
high quarters in connexion with his own proposals. 1 explained that very great
difficulties had had to be overcome on the side of His Majesty’s Government.
Their proposal represented an honest effort to reconcile all the interests involved
and I must again commend it earnestly to the acceptance of Ibn Saud.
24. My further conversation with Fuad Bey on the 26th November related
to the Koweit blockade, but later that afternoon the King again received me and
the audience was devoted entirely to the frontier question. Fuad Bey and
Captain de Gaury were present. Only the general lines of what passed can
be recorded as the King merely skirmished round the outskirts of a position on
which he had clearly made up his mind not to give ground at present. He spoke
at times with great vivacity, but with none of that bitterness which characterised
his utterances to me at Taif last year.
25. I referred to my conversation with Fuad Bey in the morning and
expressed regret that the King had found it impossible to accept a proposal which
His Majesty’s Government had put forward after an honest endeavour to reconcile
all the interests which they had to consider. My only remaining duty, I said,
was to renew my appeal that he should entertain it favourably- If this appeal
failed I must return to Jedda and report to His Majesty’s Government. What
mattered was not that 1 was returning without having reached an agreement of
principle, but that His Majesty’s Government would have great difficulty in going
further than they had done.
26. The King echoed my regret that a settlement had not proved possible.
He proffered the usual assurances that, whether this question were settled or no
his friendship with Great Britain was unaltered and unalterable: He referred
to the many sacrifices he had made in the past, and had made only for the sake
of that friendship. He suggested that it mattered little if officials took a couple
of years to settle questions. I find it difficult to recall all that His Majesty said
in this connexion, but Captain de Gaury’s recollection is that he intimated that
any differences were a matter for arrangement to be arrived at by modifications
of view on both sides on an equitable basis. If I was not in a position to modify
my proposals, that was my affair, and any delay in the negotiations could not be
attributed to unwillingness on his part to reach a settlement. In the course of
his remarks, he referred to the advantages of a method of question and answer,
but he appeared to intend to leave the application of this to Fuad Bey and himself
threw out only one question, of a somewhat rhetorical nature, as to what the
fundamental causes of difference were. He made play also with the fact that
in the treaty made with him in 1915 His Majesty's Government had undertaken
to recognise his ancestral claims. At one moment he suggested lightly that,
after all, the whole area in dispute was desert and that His Majesty's Govern
ment could easily give him a bit more.
27. After the King had expounded his views on these lines for some time,
I observed that, if I remembered rightly, the treaty of 1915 referred to his
ancestral claims in named areas. I should be prepared to answer any questions
and would now answer the only one he had put so far. The fundamental
difficulty was that, though he was the greatest ruler in Arabia, he was not the
only one who had ancestral claims. His position was simple, as he had only
to assert his own claims. That of His Majesty's Government was difficult as
they were in special relations with some of the rulers and in friendly relations,
as between independent States, with Saudi Arabia. They had to accommodate
conflicting claims and they had done their best to do so reasonably. They did
not exaggerate the ancestral claims of their clients, e.p., they did not claim Hasa
for Bahrein, merely because it was shown in old maps as belonging to the latter
principality.