"ملف 61/11 IV (D 77) مسائل متنوعة خاصة بالحجاز ونجد" [و‎‎٨‎٢] (٣٦٦/١٧٣)

7
idea of reopening or pressing the question at the present time.) 1 he equilibrium,
I said, was such that the King had come into contact with us in every direction
save one. Our desire for stability was such that we wished to see peace on all his
frontiers, even on the one on which he had no contact with us. e were not
concerned with the Yemen and I had never spoken about it, but on that side, too,
we should like to see good relations between Ibn Saud and the Imam, with whom
we got on quite well, though we had not succeeded in making a treaty with him.
6. Turning to Fuad Bey's statement of what he conceived to be our
desiderata, I said that it seemed to me to cover the ground pretty well. We
certainly wanted the first four things he had enumerated. 1 recognised that the
King's great achievement was that he had established security, a matter of direct
interest to us in the pilgrim area when it was complete and of indirect interest
to us in a more general sense As regards the fifth point on his list, T did not
know the position as regards flying over Persia, but we should like to have
freedom in agreement with the Powers concerned to fly either way along the
Persian Gulf. In so far as Bolshevik propaganda was still an active force in the
East, it was our interest to counteract it. (Fuad Bey said he wished to speak to
me another time about Bolshevik propaganda.)
7. As regards Fuad Bey's purely personal estimate of the ways in which
His Majesty's Government might help the King. I said as little as I could. I said
that, if he wished in due course to speak about the Hejaz Railway, I would report
what he had to say; I had no instructions on the subject. I had said all I would
say about Aqaba and Maan—another question which had not arisen since I came
here. He had referred to Persian Gulf questions. There had been a talk of
^ discussing them last year, but eventually the Biscoe incident had held everything
up. My Government were anxious that these questions should be handled by
Colonel Biscoe, as they were in his sphere. T could not, therefore, speak of the
desiderata on both sides, but I might mention the impression produced by the
King's prolonged blockade, as it were, of Koweit. As for Wakfs, the King had
discussed the subject with Sir G. Clayton in 1927 and had formulated desiderata.
They had been carefully considered, and later in the year a reply had been
returned, based on the constant policy of His Majesty's Government of not
interfering in so purely religious a matter. I remarked that I myself, though I
sometimes made representations about Wakfs in the Hejaz at the instance of
British Moslem interested parties, a thing rather different from interfering in
Wakfs in a country which we administered or controlled in any way, always did
so with hesitation and within as narrow limits as possible. There were, I
observed in passing, many Wakfs for the benefit of pilgrims at Mecca, and the
Hejazi Government would do well to see that they were well cared for.
8. I turned to finance. It was true that in the past His Majesty's Govern
ment had assisted King Hussein and Ibn Saud. That w^as part of a policy arising
^ out of the war, when money was spent on many things—we had, for instance,
spent millions on buying fish in Norway merely to prevent its going to our enemies.
Economy was now the order of the day. It was a plank in every political platform
in England. It was practised by His Majesty's Government. Every Government
must now stand on its own feet. That was a hard saying, but true. I knew of
the difficulties of this country. I realised that it was too dependent on the
pilgrimage. I saw salvation only in the development of the fresh economic
resources to which the Government had been turning their attention. I had heard
^ of press statements about an application to Sweden for a geological mission. T
had nothing against that. I would not encourage any hope of direct financial
assistance from Great Britain, if that was what was in Fuad Bey's mind.
British interest might possibly be enlisted in connexion with economic schemes.
If I could help with any advice in regard to such schemes I would be happy to
do so.
9. Time was running out and I could not follow up the one remaining point
in Fuad Bey's statement of the 13th June; fortunately, perhaps, as Fuad Bey
yC might have harped on an idea, which emerged in the course of our conversations,
that Ibn Sand's assistance, negative or even positive, would be useful to His
Majesty's Government if ever they had trouble in Iraq or Transjordan. I wound
up the conversation by saying that I had given him an exposition of my own ideas.
If they were in some ways discouraging, he would not take it amiss. It would be
easy enough, but not honest, to intimate agreement with him; to say when he