'Cairo: Reports, Notes, Copies of Correspondence regarding Arabian Affairs, Policy Etc' [‎18r] (37/64)

It**
For the defence of the Railway the King should depend more upon the
subsidies to the Bedouins than upon armed force. He has the following tribes
to placate south of Maan :—
H uweitat .
Beni Atiyeh
Billi and Mohab
Juheinah
H arb •
70 miles of line,
180 do.
150 do.
70 do.
50
do.
tt
For this purpose he will have to make small monthly paymenr» to the
Sheikhs of the above tribes in the same way as did the Turks, who it is under
stood spent about £T.500 per mensem on this service.
The King's fears of aggression by Ibn Saud will not be all iyed until the
dispute over Khurma has been arbitrated on by us. Indeed, until the bounda
ries of the Hejaz have been definitely fixed and our treaties with the various
Arab rulers concluded. King Husein will have an ample supply of pretexts at
hand for ke^ng up a larger regular army than he can afford.
The King should, I think, be reminded of the revised Arab Policy of
His Majesty's Government and, at the first opportunity, should be advised that
our help, fiuancial and otherwise, is contingent on his confining his activities to
the Hejaz and on his abstention from all propaganda in the ^rab territories
outside his sphere. He should be made to understand that our funds are not
given him for political intrigues and conspiracies outside the Hejaz or for
arming for anything but defence.
I am further of opinion that, once the subsidy to Feisal has ceased, we should
not allow the King to remit sums from his subsidy to either Fei|al or Zeid. A
way of stopping this would be to deduct from the following months allotment
a sum equal to that he sends during the previous month to either of his sons
in Syria, we could explain our action by saying it is obvious that any sum he
can spare for purposes outside his sphere must be surplus to his real needs.
In addition to the inauguration of a proper system of civil government
wilh the necessary personnel, the following are some of the more important
items on which King Husein must now lay out considerable sums of money :—
(1) Improvements in the Quarantine stations at Jeddah, Yenbo and one
on the Kailway.
(2) Repairs to Railway and renewal of rolling stocks
(3) Water supplies at the large towns.
(4) A road from Jeddah to Mecca.
The present local sources of income to the Hejaz Government may be set
out as follows :—
(1) Quarantine dues.
(2) Railway receipts.
(3) Postal receipts (and probably cable).
(4) Customs receipts.
(5) Wakfs.
(6) Municipal taxes.
It is unlikely that items (2), (3) and (6) will produce any available
surplus over expenditure for some time to come.
At present it is impossible to say how far the religious nature of item (5)
will interfere with its use for meeting ordinary civil expenses, but there is no
doubt that it should have some indirect influence on the financial help that the
King will need.
The Hejaz receives large Wakf payments from other Moslem countries,
and information is being asked for from Constantinople and Baghdad as to the
annual amounts likely to be transmitted from Turkey and the Iraq in future.
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