"ملف 61/11 V (D 95) مسائل متنوعة خاصة بالحجاز ونجد" [و‎‎٢‎١‎٩] (٥٣٠/٤٥٤)

I933] IBN SA'tJD AND THE FUTURE OF ARABIA 529
King and eight of them elected—I should perhaps add that they
are elected by the King. That, in my opinion, is an ideal form
of constitution; you get sixteen members appointed by the King.
I should like to summarise shortly my own views on the future
of Arabia under Ibn Sa'ud. Ibn Sa'ud is a genius. It is by no
manner of means an exaggeration to say that he is the greatest
Arab since the Prophet. He is very fond of saying, " The
English are my friends; but I will walk with them only so far
as my religion and honour will allow." But he is genius enough
to know when to continue the walk even though it is necessary
to allow a certain amount of elasticity, both to his religion and to
his honour. In several matters repeatedly, perhaps almost once
every six months, he has come up against Great Britain, and
he has an uncommon instinct for choosing the occasions when
he can stand his ground and beat us, because for some reason,
perhaps not connected with Arabia, perhaps a Labour Govern
ment, we cannot do anything at the time. He always chooses
such occasions and always wins, increasing his prestige every
time. Otherwise he lodges a strong protest and gives way.
At the beginning of last year, for instance, there was trouble
about a slave who took refuge in the British Legation at Jedda.
Great Britain is the only country that has the right to manumit
and repatriate slaves who get into the Legation by the Treaty
of Jedda which Sir Gilbert Clayton signed, but royal slaves are
exempt from the purview of the Treaty and therefore have to
be handed back. This slave was claimed by Sir Fu'ad Hamza
as being a royal slave. His Majesty's Minister took an elaborate
statement from him by which it appeared that he had come
from Nigeria in childhood with his parents on pilgrimage. It
took two years to get across Africa, and after many vicissitudes
he had got to the Hejaz, where he was stolen and sold as a slave.
He had then been stolen again and sold once more. He even
tually fetched up in Medina in 1924, and when Ibn Sa'ud con
quered Medina in 1925 his capturer had presented him to the
King. But in fact the slave had never been in the King's house.
He had been in the house of Sheykh Yusuf Yasin, who purchased
slaves for the King. So Sir Andrew Ryan said that he was not
a royal soldier or servant in the meaning of the Treaty of Jedda.
Sir Fu'ad refused to give way and sent ten Nejd soldiers and
officers down to the quarantine jetty with orders to shoot the
slave on sight. They would not go to the extent of shooting a
slave if he was on British soil. The Legation, the Legation car
and the launch were British soil. Meanwhile the Foreign Office