"١/١ المجلد I العلاقات الكويتية السعودية" [و‎‎٦‎٨] (٦٠٨/١٤٦)

2 .
5. A curious thing also happened immediately after uhe
Sheikhs return on 3rd April. A1 Nafiei called on me on
the 5th,(he is Bin Sauds agent as you know) He urged me
solemnly and with obvious sincerity and anxiety in his
voice, to use all my endeavours with to end the
Blockade quickly, for Kuwait was in a very baa way indeed
just now. He Instanced the fact that the Sheikh had since
hia return called on the merchants for a ^10000/- subscript-
inn to feed the poor, and that the amount collected had
reached ifeQOOO/- in two days: Nafisi ended his talk by
saying that he had received a personal letter from Bin
Saud by the hand of his son who had accompanied the Sheikhs
party, to the effect that he Bin Saud sent his special
rt salaams** to me, and was much pleased with all my efforts
to bring about a better understanding between Kuwait and
Nejd.
6. I have a sort of feeling that the Sheikhs curious desire
to keep in with Bln Saud these days is possibly due to
the Anti British propaganda which has for sometime past
been going on in Kuwait: I ha mentioned the matter to
you before. It takes the form that Great Britain is
loosing her grip of things in the Hear Bast and Bast general
-ly, as Instance th© condition of India, her relaxing
her hold in Iraq, and her policy in Persia etc. etc.
Great Britain is pictured as being all too ready nowadays
to adopt the line of least resistance, abandon her rights,
desert her friends, and generally rely on the League of
Nations (a broken reed) to ajust her affairs for her.
Nearer home, the Sheikh has seen unaccountable delays as
he thinks, in the matter of his Date Gardens, the settle
ment of the Blockade, and the Post and Telegraph question.
All this In a way confirms he thinks what propagandists
are ever preaching. He of course fears : ejd and Iraq, the
latter much more than the former. What better course he
thinks than to be in the fashion and arrange a rapprochmant
with one of his strong neighbours Bln Saud, a big personage
certainly and to whom he after all is related, by tribal ties