مجموعة ٦/ ٩ "تقارير جدة يناير ١٩٣١ -" [و‎‎٧‎٤] (٨٠٢/١٤٨)

3
expected to travel by that route this year than last. Meanwhile, the King’s
chauffeur, Muhammad Siddiq, claims to he getting on well with a scheme, for
which the King has given him a concession, for transport across Arabia from some
port on the Hasa coast of the Persian Gulf to Mecca. He says that he has
raised most of the necessary capital from other people, and in particular from
^Muhammad Surur, to have been in correspondence with Messrs. Thos. Cook
and Son in India, and to be in treaty for the purchase of Swedish cars for the
cross-desert service. The making of a good road from Riyadh to the Hejaz is
reported (paragraph 406) to be one of the inducements offered by the Saudi
Arabian Mining Syndicate in exchange for another concession. The Political
Agent at Bahrein reports that the California Arabian Standard Oil Company
are now constructing a road ftom Ras Tanura to A1 Khobar, and that develop
ments are projected to enable steamers to make Ras Tanura a port of call.
409. Official Communique No. 16. published in the Umm-al-Qura of the /
11 th December, reports that the Director-General of Police at Mecca has been /
appointed Inspector of Slave Affairs and his assistant Deputy-Inspector, and that j
the police throughout the Saudi Arabian kingdom will be the competent/
authorities for the purpose of the registration of slaves (see articles 13 and 9 of/
the Slavery Regulation attached to the Jedda report for October).
410. There has been a series of burglaries in Jedda after some years of
immunity from this form of crime. Among the sufferers are two Indian
dispensers attached to the Legation, who lost clothing and considerable sums of
money in this way. Various suspects are under arrest. The authorities can be
counted upon to do their best to discover the burglars, for Ibn Saud is known to
pride himself upon the freedom of his realm from theft and robbery.
II .—Frontier Questions and Foreign Relations in Arabia.
411. The Legation have received copies of the comments of the Sheikh of
Koweit on the draft regulations which are designed to put an end to the Koweit
blockade, and of his counter-draft (paragraph 282) of article 1 , but the observa- j
tions of the British authorities concerned have not yet arrived, so the matter has
not been taken up again with the Saudi Government.
412. References to Ibn Saud’s attitude towards the troubles in Palestine
have been few in these monthly reports, as communications on the subject between
Ibn Saud and His Majesty’s Government are always conveyed through the Saudi
Legation in London. Ibn Saud cannot be expected not to have one eye on pan-
Arab aims, but, subject to that proviso, he did his best, in co-operation with the
other Arab rulers, to induce the Palestine Arabs to put an end to the strike and
the disorders, and he is also using his influence against the refusal of the
Palestine Arabs to give any evidence before the Royal Commission. The Palestine
delegation which visited Iraq to consult about the Royal Commission was reported
from Bagdad to be leaving for Riyadh via Basra and Koweit on the
24th December.
413. On Fuad Bey’s return from Riyadh the Transjordan questions
mentioned in paragraph 380 were taken up again. He brought categorical
assurances from Ibn Saud that the lodging of complaints in writing at the British
Legation in Jedda about alleged frontier violations did not indicate any change
in the resolve of the Saudi Government to pursue the method of co-operation
between the frontier officials provided for in the 1933 agreement, Fuad Bey said
that sometimes questions of principle were involved which justified a more formal
communication through the Legation, but His Majesty's Minister said that this
did not apply to all, if to any, of the written complaints in question. At the
beginning of the month a written protest was received from the Minister for
Foreign Affairs stating that a British aeroplane had crossed the Transjordan
frontier into Saudi Arabian territory near Haditha on the 22 nd November and
after getting back to Mecca, Fuad Bey telephoned to say that he had received
several other complaints of violations of the frontier by British aeroplanes between
Haditha and Hazim. He probably did not like to put on paper any protest
referring to Hazim, which the Transjordan authorities have always held to be on
their side of the frontier. The complaints have been forwarded to Transjordan
for examination. They were used by His Majesty’s Minister as yet one more
argument in favour of a settlement of the Transjordan frontier \fter seeing
[906 cc 2] B 2