مجموعة ٦/ ٩ "تقارير جدة يناير ١٩٣١ -" [و‎‎١‎٧‎٨] (٨٠٢/٣٥٦)

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47. A smaller and more local enterprise commended itself to the notice of
pilgrims on the 4th February in an announcement of edifying modesty. Its
authors admitted that the quality of the cloth was poor and its price high. They
urged, however, that the price was not enough to cover expenses, and suggested
that the cloth might be bought for presents from the Holy Land, shrouds, pilgrim
/^\ garb and servants’ clothes.
48. An electric lighting plant for the sacred precincts at Mecca, presented
by Sir Muhammad Muzammil-Ullah Khan, K.C.I.E., O.B.E., of Bhikampur,
Alighah, arrived from India on the 12th February.
49. Ihe Saudi authorities, anxious to remedy certain nuisances in and
about the sacred precincts at Mecca, have provided a refuge capable of accom
modating some 1,500 poor people, without beds, but with free food.
50. There is no truth in a report published in the Moscow Daily News of
the 28th November, and perhaps in other papers, that Russian engineers have
installed an automatic telephone service in Jedda. The Soviet Government did
piesent twenty-five instruments and a central instrument to Ibn Baud last summer
and sent experts. No other apparatus is known to have been imported since.
The presentation outfit is installed in the Royal palace at Taif.
II -—Frontier Questions and Foreign Relations in Arabia.
51. luad Bey Hamza assured Sir Andrew Ryan on the 20th February that
there was no trouble of any sort on the \ emen frontier. He said that a delimita-
tion of the frontier (paragraph 18 of the last report) was in view, but that it was
not for that that the Deputy Minister of 1 inance and Khalid-al-Qarqani had
been standing by. It had been intended to send them on a mission of adminis-
trative organisation only. Fuad Bey mentioned the presence at Riyadh of a
1 emeni emissary, who had taken over forty davs to get there overland with a
letter, apparently, from the King of the Yemen/
52. Incidentally, Fuad Bey said that the alleged spy and the alleged
Japanese representative mentioned in paragraph 18 of the last report were
distinct persons and the resemblance in their names merely superficial. The first,
he said, was a man named Skaf (or “ Cobbler ”), who was born in Svria, had
spent some time in the Hejaz and had got into trouble in the Yemen last year over
some business involving the use of forged seals, for which he had been sentenced
to two years imprisonment. This may afiord a sidelight on the most highly
coloured story yet circulated in this connexion, namely, that the failure of the
Yemeni troops to counter-attack last year, when they seemed fully prepared to do
so, was due to orders issued by this Skaf, at Saudi instigation, over a perfect
leplica of the seal of the King of the \emen. As for the other man, Fuad Bey
said that he belonged to the well-known Saqqaf family, who have large interests
m the Dutch East Indies and elsewhere.
t aP - The Saudi . ^I inist er of Finance and the Iraqi Charge d’Affaires in
Jedda signed a provisional agreement on the 12th February regarding the motor
route for pilgrims from Nejef to Medina (paragraphs 13 and 20 of the last
report), the press had already announced the arrival of the first pilgrims by
this route, but the report may have been premature. In a conversation early in
February the Iraqi Charge was even more eloquent than he had previously been
(paragraph 20 of the last report) about the improvement in Saudi-Iraqi relations,
which he dated from about two months earlier. The Saut-al-Hejaz newspaper of
the 11th February referred in particular to the friendly intercourse of tribes on
the frontier. Finally, on the 20th February, Fuad Bey Hamza spoke to Sir
Andrew Ryan of the expected visit of an Iraqi delegation,^ which might be headed
by Nun Pasha-as-Said, the Iraqi Minister for Foreign Affairs. This will
probably be delayed by the fall of the Iraqi Cabinet in the last days of February.
JNeyertheless the indications of a political rapprochement between Saudi Arabia
volume aq> ° f WhlCh FUad BGy SP ° ke in London in September, are gathering
54. The sudden death at Bagdad on the 13th February of King Ali seemed
to create no emotion among his and his father’s former subiects The Iraoi
Charge when announcing it naturally gave the deceased his titles but verv
correctly mentioned his relationship to King Ghazi, thus making it a matter of
Iraqi Royal mourning. This minimised any delicacy there might have been about
mourning in Jedda. The British Legation and most of the other foreign missions
[ 356 s—3] g