'File 61/11 V (D 95) Hejaz - Nejd, Miscellaneous' [‎10r] (36/530)

impotence and finds it disconcerting; and it is now certain that he suffers from
dyspeptic troubles. The reasons for the deterioration in his political position
are manifold, but may be summed up as follows :—>
{a) He has made a complete mess of the Administration of the Hejaz, his
tenure of which goes back only six or seven years. The population
has no guts, but discontent with his regime is widespread.
(5) He indisposes extreme Wahabi opinion by his modernising tendencies,
although there are no certain signs that his position in Nejd and its
Dependencies, based on personal ascendency and reinforced by his
suppression of the 1929 revolt, is seriously impaired.
{c) He isolates himself in the Arab world by his individualism, his hostility
to the Hashimites and his dislike of any manifestations of Arab
nationalism {e.g., the Arab alliance project) not tending towards his
own domination.
{d) He antagonises large sections of Moslem opinion by his religious intoler
ance, fundamentally that of a Wahabi, though with a difference, as
manifested, e.g., in the desecration of shrines.
(e) He unfits himself for a real place in the family of nations by his intract
ability, his excessive jealousy of his independence and his dislike of
any form of foreign penetration. His attitude regarding slavery
affords a test of his remoteness from a world in which all civilised
Moslem Powers and most enlightened Moslem opinion agree that
slavery is an outworn institution. I say only " a test," because no
one, except Great Britain to some extent and potentially the League
of Nations, if Ibn Saud sought membership, minds very much about
slavery as it exists in Arabia.
{f) He has no advisers fit to help him in organising a modern State. He
clings to Abdullah Suleiman, a glorified office boy, but the only Nejdi
in high position in his Central Government; deplorable as a Finance
Minister from any European point of view, but excellent as a grand
extortioner and evader of liabilities. Fuad Hamza is clever and
modern-minded, but not experienced or strong enough to create order
out of chaos and himself too mad on the idea of independence to take
large views. The other Syrian, Yussuf Yasin, is a useful secretary
but fundamentally a fanatic. Hafiz Wahba, a sensible but easy-going
man, is out of the picture and hates the Syrians. These and perhaps a
few other non-Nejdis are genuinely devoted to Ibn Saud's cause; most
of the minor Syrians and other alien odds and ends are in his service
for what they can make out of it. He has scrapped the one man, also
a Syrian, personally ambitious but useful, who seemed likely to make a
moderate success of the embryo regular army on European lines.
{g) At the back of all, just now, is financial stringency operating on a small
scale, but fatally, because Ibn Saud and Abdullah Suleiman between
them have destroyed what little credit the country might have had;
because the Hejaz has no serious resources other than the diminishing
pilgrimage; and because the Hejaz has to carry a great part of the
burden of Nejd. The Government as such is unquestionably bankrupt.
There is no means of verifying or disproving the belief held in some
quarters that Ibn Saud has collected a substantial reserve for his own
purpose at Riadh.
(C.)—Position of His Majesty's Government.
It is a common superstition in the East that Ibn Saud subsists by the
favour of His Majesty's Government. As a present-day proposition this is absurd,
but it is true that Great Britain is the only Power that really counts in Arabia.
Ibn Saud's greatest achievements in the international sphere have been the
conclusion of the Treaty of Jedda on equal terms and the establishment of normal
diplomatic relations. It is a question of major policy whether we should follow
one or three broad courses, viz. :—
(a) To give positive support to Ibn Saud, on the ground that he is, in spite
of everything, an element of stability, about the best example of his
type and reasonably well disposed, so long as he is not crossed;