File 1707/1924 ‘Arabia:- Jeddah Situation Reports. (1924-1930)’ [‎242v] (489/898)

was reopened by Ibn Sand after a few honest doubts. Writing, reading, the Koran
and traditions and elementary arithmetic are taught, and the highest class are even
given three lessons a week in English, which pupils, especially those of the merchant
class, are anxious to learn. It is proposed also to teach a little geography, but the
suggestion to impart such a dangerous and subversive science may not come to
anything.
24. A number of intricate regulations have also been published for automobile
traffic on the Jeddah-Mecca road—a traffic open to the Moslem public since the
withdrawal of the monopoly concession. The regulations affect licences, number
plates, rates, road- tax, the removal of broken-down cars, chauffeurs’ permits, number
of passengers, speed limit, lights, fines and penalties, the necessity of keeping to the
right and of pulling up when the King passes. The legal fare between Jeddah and
Mecca is £1 for adults and half that amount for children. There is some talk in
Jeddah of an enterprise by which steamship companies can issue through-tickets by
steamer and car to Mecca.
25. All doctors, chemists and dentists are to obtain permits to practise from
the Department of Public Health.
26. Hassan Bey Wefqi, a Syrian, Director of Public Security, has been deputed
to go to Berne to negotiate the entry of the Hejaz into the International Postal Union.
A somewhat amusing article in the “ Umm-el-Kura ” published in this connection
suggests that it is not below the dignity of the Hejaz to join the comity of nations in
the matter of posts, as the system was invented by an Oriental, Cyrus, the last of the
Persian kings, in his war with the Greeks.
27. A supply of new stamps is being printed. I am unable to state as yet
whether, with an eye on the commercial value to philatelists, they are to be of nev r
design.
28. There have been signs that the question of nationality in the Hejaz has been
exercising the minds of the King and his advisers. The problem presents many
special difficulties. In the Hejaz the number of foreigners, as is only to be expected
in a State whose principal raison d'etre is the pilgrimage, is very considerable. To
King Hussein is attributed the remark that, if each foreign Power were to claim its
nationals in Mecca, the only subjects left to him would be the dogs of one quarter and
the Bedu of another. The jest is true in the sense that a great number of Meccans
are of foreign descent, extracted from the four corners of the Moslem world. Again,
the number of foreigners in the Hejaz for trade or in the Government service is
important. It is obviously difficult for the Administration to do without the latter’s
services, but a Government which has to depend on alien servants is in an equivocal
position.
29. However, a beginning has been made to cut away some of these entangle
ments. According to a recent order, holders of public office and employees of
Governments departments must be subjects of Ibn Saud. Foreign subjects whose
services are judged indispensable will be employed on contract for a fixed term and
under special conditions. As a result of this law, a number of foreign employees in
the Customs at Jeddah have been given the choice of adopting Hejaz nationality or
of relinquishing their posts. This involved three Indians and a Sudanese, who all
appealed to this agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. for advice. They were told that the matter was one for their
private conscience; their adoption of local nationality would amount to naturalisa
tion in the Hejaz, by which they would abandon consular protection, a step which
anyone living abroad is free to take. The Sudanese said he would stick to his job.
The three Indians preferred to retain their nationality and have resigned. Similarly,
two Indians employed as engineers on the condenser have been asked to sign a
contract to the effect that, while servants of the Hejaz Government, they will refer
their complaints to that Government alone.
30. Whether these regulations will be enforced against the higher functionaries
remains to be seen. Some of them have, no doubt, their main interest here, and will
feel no loss on becoming Hejazis. Others will possibly console themselves with the
thought that, even if they adopt local nationality temporarily, no formal renuncia
tion of original nationality is required, and they may find means later on when they
leave the country of concealing their apostasy.
31. The preoccupation of the Hejaz Government with this question of
nationality is evidenced in another direction by a case which occurred recently m
Jeddah. A local merchant, bearer of an Egyptian passport regularly obtainea
through the Egyptian consulate in Jeddah after consideration by the Ministry of the
Interior in Cairo, was refused permission to leave the country on the grounds that he
was in reality a Hejaz subject, having been born in the Hejaz. The Egyptian consul