مجموعة ٦/ ١٩ "الجزيرة العربية: (المملكة العربية السعودية) التقرير السنوي لمملكة الحجاز ونجد." [ظ‎‎١‎٠‎٨] (٥٤٠/٢١٧)

10
particularly as regards the oil concession area. Article 6 of the Treaty of Jedda
was formally invoked. Mr. Calvert carried out his instructions in a letter to
Sheikh Yusuf Yasin of the 26th September.
36. The first point dealt with in Mr. Calvert’s instructions is the most
important in connexion with the subject of this section. Sheikh Yusuf retorted
in a letter of the 15th October, in which he expressly claimed that article 6 of the
Treaty of Jedda did not preclude direct correspondence with the rulers named in
it, and stated that “ correspondence is exchanged between His Majesty and them
in respect of various affairs, because this assures the friendly and peaceful
relations which His Majesty undertook to maintain.”
37. By this time Sir Andrew Ryan’s visit to Riyadh was well in sight, and
His Majesty’s Government preferred to postpone further discussion of the
question of direct correspondence, as all matters affecting the position between
Saudi Arabia and Qatar were bound up with the settlement of the frontier
question, which was to be the subject of new proposals on the Minister’s arrival.
The fate of these proposals will be related later. It need only be said here that in
his conversations at Riyadh Sir Andrew Ryan strongly reasserted the position
of His Majesty’s Government in regard to the foreign affairs of their clients on
the Persian Gulf and restated their objections to Ibn Sand’s having addressed the
Sheikh of Qatar direct. On this occasion Fuad Bey did not attempt to contest Sir
Andrew Ryan’s arguments, but advanced a new suggestion that an alleged direct
agreement between the sheikh and Ibn Saud, prior to the Anglo-Qatar Treaty of
1916, was in any case binding, as the sheikh must be held to have been a free
agent before the date of that treaty.
38. Sheikh Yusuf Yasin’s letter of the 15th October shows up an apparent
weakness in the language of article 6 of the Treaty of Jedda, which might be held
to mean that, if relations were to be friendly and peaceful, there must be relations.
This view was rebutted in an important Foreign Office despatch of the
16th November, which concluded from an examination not only of the text of
article 6, but of other relevant considerations also, that the Saudi view was
untenable.
39. This already long section would not be complete without a further
reference to the language attributed to Fuad Bey in the newspaper article
mentioned in paragraph 16 above. Fuad Bey was represented as having supple
mented his language about the value of a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia
and Iraq as a step towards the realisation of Arab national aspirations by the
following sentence : ‘ ‘ The small amirates which you see on the coasts of Arabia
will not stand before the hurricane, as their existence is contrary to the law of
nature.” This could be read as referring to an ultimate ideal rather than to the
immediate objectives of Saudi policy, but, if it was said, it exposed the speaker, a
responsible Saudi statesman, to the reproach of grave indiscretion.
40. Finally, attention must be drawn to the personal intercourse of the
Persian Gulf rulers with the Governor of Hasa, and to some extent with Ibn Saud
himself. Visits were paid to the late Sheikh Abdullah-bin-Jiluwi by the ruler
of Dibai at the end of September 1935, and by the ruler of Ras-al-Khaimah in
October. The ruler of Sharjah proceeded to Hofuf in November to condole with
Ibn Jiluwi’s son, and went on to see the King at Riyadh. The Political Agent
at Bahrein saw no present reason to attach political importance to this excursion.
It seemed to be generally accepted, he said, that the journeys of the various chiefs
to Hasa and their attempts to get to Ibn Saud, who had ordered Ibn Jiluwi to
discourage visits to Riyadh, were undertaken with the object of receiving money
and presents. Even so, it is difficult to regard without misgiving the tendency
of British clients on the Persian Gulf to look to Ibn Saud as the big noise in their
vicinity. The danger of their being drawn into the King’s orbit may be somewhat
increased by the fairly frequent visits to Saudi Arabia of their relatives.
Brothers of the Sheikhs of Dibai and Sharjah made the pilgrimage in 1935, and a
brother of the Sheikh of Bahrein repaired to the mainland in November. This list
is not necessarily complete.
(7) Bahrein.
41. The discussion of the subject of Bahrein transit dues was resumed in
February, after His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom had agreed
(see paragraph 56 below) to deal separately with each of the major questions