مجموعة ٦/ ١٩ "الجزيرة العربية: (المملكة العربية السعودية) التقرير السنوي لمملكة الحجاز ونجد." [ظ‎‎١‎٦] (٥٤٠/٣٣)

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marriage to a foreigner and that the Saudi authorities had no right to detain
her, but no definite solution of the problem was reached. The new law regularises
the position by retaining the woman as a Saudi citizen until after she has left
the country.
Deportation of Foreigners.
6. The attitude of the Saudi Government with regard to the deportation of
undesirable foreigners is complicated by religious considerations. They consider
every intending pilgrim who lands without sufficient means to pay the dues as
undesirable, but they have hitherto refrained, either from religious scruples or
from fear of criticism, from refusing to allow them to make the pilgrimage and
deporting them at once. An attempt was made by the Kaimakam of Jedda to
induce His Majesty’s Legation to repatriate fifteen persons alleged to be Indians
but without papers. Having accepted the point of view of His Majesty’s
Government that deportation of undesirables was the business of the Saudi
authorities, the kaimakam probably adopted the ordinary local procedure and
sent the undesirables southwards in a dhow and dumped them just over the
Yemeni frontier. This may seem severe by our standards, but as most, if not all,
such undesirables will have reached the Hejaz mainly on foot, and without
complying with any passport or sanitary regulations or paying the dues, there
would be little ground for objection on the part of foreign missions, even if the
nationality of the persons concerned could be fully established.
7. Religious considerations have also complicated the question of stowaways
on pilgrim ships. In 1937 one or two of the pilgrim ships from the Far East were
found on arrival at Jedda to have stowaways on board. The authorities allowed
the stowaways to make the pilgrimage, and then expected the shipping company
to ship them back free. The company naturally offered to take back immediately
any stowaway found on any of their ships, but not to give a free passage to a
stowaway who. instead of being penalised, has actually been rewarded for his
fraud by being allowed to make the pilgrimage. Impressed by this argument, the
Kaimakam of Jedda this year returned the first three stowaways, but for this
he seems to have been reprimanded by Ibn Saud, and the fourth stowaway who
arrived was allowed to land. Soon after this the Saudi Government wished the
company to give a free passage home to a Malay pilgrim who had gone mad. The
company agreed on condition that the stowaway should go, too, and should not
be allowed to wait to make the pilgrimage, and in the end the authorities gave in.
It is hoped that this will serve as a deterrent.
Difficulties peculiar to Saudi A rabia.
8. Communication between the foreign missions in Jedda and Ibn Saud
during the long period when he was in or near Riyadh was facilitated to some
extent by the appointment of Ibrahim-al-Mu’ammar, the Kaimakam of Jedda, as
go-between. He is no more than a go-between, and he shows the keenest anxiety
lest he should fail to transmit the messages to or from Ibn Saud exactly as he
receives them, but at least he is intelligent, and he is very active and prompt.
But even so communication is slow, partly because of the clumsy method of
cyphering used, as to which the kaimakam makes no secret. The delays, which
are always inconvenient, were distressing when it took some fifteen hours'to obtain
the consent of Ibn Saud for British aeroplanes to search for a missing Royal Air
Force bomber in Saudi territory.
9. The foreign missions are still confined to Jedda for residence. When the
Afghan Minister took a house at Taif in 1936 he received a severe snub. In 1938
His Majesty’s Legation evolved a plan to establish a week-end tent sufficiently
far inland for members of the staff to escape from the heat and dampness of the
Red Sea coast now and then during the summer, and the Saudi Arabian Mining
Syndicate kindly offered to allow the tent to be pitched at their camp at Madraga,
90 miles up the mine road, where there is a plentiful supply of good water
Unfortunately, the proposal was rejected by the Saudi Government on grounds of
public security. It is difficult to judge whether this is the real reason, or whether
the Saudi Government are not rather (or also) actuated by fear of foreign
penetration into the interior of their territory.