مجموعة ٦/ ١٩ "الجزيرة العربية: (المملكة العربية السعودية) التقرير السنوي لمملكة الحجاز ونجد." [و‎‎٩‎٤] (٥٤٠/١٨٨)

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sent. The population of the Hejaz are content to forget the past in the contem
plation of the future. They are delighted at the prospect of the return of the
golden flood of Egyptian charity to its ancient bed, and of the further profits to
be made out of the Egyptian pilgrimage which the resumption of official relations
and the signature of the treaty and the agreements are expected to stimulate.
107. For reasons best known to Nahas Pasha, Egypt stood outside the joint
measures taken by the other Arab States in regard to the troubles in Palestine.
108. Now that normal relations have been established, it is to be expected
that Saudi Arabia will be much influenced by Egypt, which, besides being near, is
much more highly developed in education, in administration, and in commerce
and industry. The Saudi Government have indented on the Government of Egypt
for three schoolmasters and a road engineer. The schemes of Talat Pasha Harb
belong rather to the economic section of this report. Most of them remain as
schemes, but he has certainly stimulated the pilgrimage from Egypt both by sea
and by air. One aeroplane even carried some pilgrims to Medina in 1936.
(8) Turkey.
109. Ibn Saud regards Turkey with feelings of apprehension, which he has
expressed to His Majesty’s Government on more than one occasion. His fears
are not immediately for his own country, which is on quite good terms with
Turkey, but for the Arab countries which march with Turkey. His fears became
more acute at the prospect of the conclusion of a non-aggression agreement
between Turkey, Persia, Iraq and Afghanistan, and probably formed one of the
motives, though a less important one than his doubts about the intentions of Italy,
which underlay his proposals to the Iraq Government for the conclusion of a
treaty of alliance. Turkey has hardly any interests in Saudi Arabia, now that
she discourages the pilgrimage, except the defence of the claims of Turkish
subjects who own real property in the Hejaz. The new Turkish Charge
d’Affaires, M. Palsay, who arrived in October, is only required by his Government
to spend four months of the year in Saudi Arabia; the rest of the year he will
either be in the Yemen or on leave. Towards the end of the year M. Palsay was
active in distributing official Turkish propaganda about Alexandretta, a question
which was giving the Saudi Government much anxiety. In private, M. Palsay,
as a sincere Moslem, was having difficulty in defending the Turkish Government
from accusations of impiety, and even infidelity, based upon its attitude towards
the Moslem religion. The Hejaz must feel acutely the reduction to insignificant
proportions of the numbers of'pilgrims from Turkey and must resent the official
policy to which that reduction is due.
(9) Iran.
110. The non-aggression agreement to which Iran is expected to be a party
is mentioned in paragraph 109 above as a cause of apprehension to the Saudi
Government. The Iranian Mamster in Cairo, Mr. Soltan Ahmad Khan Pad, was
duly appointed to Saudi Arabia as well, but lie spent less than two months in
the country, and it is understood that most of his time will be spent in Cairo.
The fact that for more than ten months of the year Iranian interests were in the
charge of a clerk and that there was no Legation building, the archives being
stored at the Turkish Legation, is a measure of the degree of importance attached
to Saudi Arabia by the Iranian Government, who are believed to regard the
performance of the pilgrimage to IVlecca by Persians as a financial loss to the State
which is to be discouraged.
Ill The conclusion of the agreement about transit dues at Bahrein, which
was concluded in November 1935, drew from the Iranian Government a protest
addressed to the Saudi Government, setting forth the Iranian claim to Bahrein.
The Saudi Government communicated the text of the protest to His
Majesty’s Legation and asked for the views of His Majesty’s Govern
ment on the draft reply which they had prepared. Sheikh Yusuf Yasm
told His Majesty’s Chargd d’Affaires on this occasion that he regarded the claim