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'File 61/11 V (D 95) Hejaz - Nejd, Miscellaneous' [64r] (144/530)
The record is made up of 1 volume (261 folios). It was created in 12 May 1932-28 Dec 1933. It was written in English and French. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
EASTERN (Arabia).
CONFIDENTIAL.
[E 4169/165/25]
r
1°
i ^US'HinF RHSlDjS[NC1
lev-3-v
No. 1.
August 18, 1932.
Section 2.
Sir A. Ryan to Sir.John Simon.—{Received August 18.)
(No. 298.)
Jedda, July 12, 1932.
' WITH reference to Mr. Hope Gill's despatch No. 140 of the 20tli March
and previous correspondence relative to the financial situation of this country, I
have the honour to forward a translation of a regulation published in the
"Umm-al-Qura'' of the 17th June, regarding the mode of settlement of
Government debts. The wording of the regulation is in some respects obscure,
and I should not like to vouch for the complete accuracy of the translation. The
principle appears to be that all debts (meaning, presumably, debts dating from
before the current financial year, although this is not stated) will, except as
provided in articles 1, 2, 5 and 6, be paid by drafts on customs, where such drafts
have not already been issued in respect of them, and that such drafts will be
accepted in payment of 25 per cent, of the duty on newly-imported goods.
Claimants who are not themselves importing merchants are to nominate such
merchants, in whose name the drafts will be issued. I understand that, as might
be expected, the market for drafts on customs is very poor, but it is too soon to
judge of the practical effect of the regulation.
2. I have reported elsewhere on a representation made to me by the Acting
Hejazi Minister for Foreign Affairs regarding the discouraging advice alleged
to have been given by His Majesty's Government to the business friends of a
M. Ydlibi, who is interested in enterprise in this country. I suggested, in this
connexion, to Sheikh Yussuf Yasin that the Hejazi Government were themselves
destroying any credit they might have. This led the sheikh to give me on the
26th June his general views about the financial situation. He spoke of the
poverty of the Hejaz and the conditions in other countries, referring, inter alia, to
the loss imposed on so many people by Great Britain's abandonment of the gold
standard.
3. I explained to Sheikh Yussuf at some length that what I complained of
was not the effects of the poverty of the Hejaz, which might well necessitate
special arrangements with creditors, but the financial methods employed, which
were such that no creditor knew where he stood. I had not, I said, pressed him
on the subject of claims in which His Majesty's Government were interested,
because we had been absorbed in the
Transjordan
Used in three contexts: the geographical region to the east of the River Jordan (literally ‘across the River Jordan’); a British protectorate (1921-46); an independent political entity (1946-49) now known as Jordan
frontier, but I ran him through
the list in order to illustrate my thesis. It had been announced last autumn that
one-fourth of the whole revenue would be assigned to the payment of old debts,
and I had in January given Sheikh Fuad Hamza my views as to how the
Government might be expected to deal with the floating debt problem. The
arrangement of last autumn seemed to have been lost sight of, and there was now
a new regulation which I did not quite understand, but which seemed to produce
certain definite effects.
4. I told Sheikh Yussuf that article 1 of the new regulation seemed to me
to be a grand arrangement for creditors who had special arrangements. I
expected to hear at any moment that Egyptian Shell had been paid the amounts
due for the benzine which the Government had acquired in peculiar circumstances
last September, and in respect of which the Director-General of Finance had made
and then dishonoured a special agreement. I was interested, however, in other
claims, about which no special arrangements had been made. I gave, as one
example, the small sum due to His Majesty's Government for the Hejazi share
in the expenditure on the MacDonnell investigation. Was it really intended, I
asked, that I should take out drafts on customs and get a local importing merchant
to discount them for me? The sheikh replied in a rather shocked tone that the
regulation did not apply to the case in point. I referred also to a subject on
which I had spoken to him on the 12th June, but with which I have not felt it
necessary to trouble you, namely, the action (successful in some cases) of the
[542 s—2]
About this item
- Content
The volume consists of letters, telegrams, and memoranda relating to the Hejaz and Najd. Much of the correspondence is from the British Legation in Jeddah, with regular reports on the situation in that region sent to Sir John Simon, the Foreign Secretary in London. The rest of the correspondence is mostly between the Political Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. in Bushire, the Political Agencies in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Muscat, the Colonial Office, and the Government of India.
The main subjects of the volume are:
- the change in name from 'The Kingdom of the Hejaz-Nejd and its Dependencies' to 'The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia';
- the announcement of Ibn Sa'ud's eldest son, Prince Sa'ud, as the heir apparent to the throne;
- the territorial dispute between Yemen and Saudi Arabia after the latter's absorption of the 'Asir region into its kingdom.
A copy of the 23 September 1932 issue of the newspaper Umm al-Qura is contained in the volume (folios 57-58). It features the Royal Order proclaiming the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Other miscellaneous subjects covered in the volume include:
- relations between Italy and Saudi Arabia;
- a dispute between Ibn Sa'ud and his agent in Bahrain, al-Quasaibi [‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Qusaibi], over a debt the former owes the latter;
- a revolt against Ibn Sa'ud by tribes loyal to ex-King Hussein coming from Sinai;
- a request for a loan made by Ibn Sa'ud to the British Government;
- relations between the Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia;
- relations between the USA and Saudi Arabia, including the visit of a Mr Gallant looking for oil concessions;
- concessions for the building of the railway between Mecca and Jeddah;
- the prospect of Saudi Arabia joining the League of Nations;
- the case of two slave girls seeking refuge at the British Legation in Jeddah.
Other documents of note contained in the volume are:
- a copy of a new customs tariff for Saudi Arabia (folios 122-134)
- a 'Who's Who' of Saudi Arabia, produced by the British Legation in Jeddah and covering all those deemed important to know by the British (folios 183-200);
- an envelope containing the torn-out pages of an article in the International Affairs journal (Vol. 12, No. 4, Jul., 1933, pp 518-534) entitled 'Ibn Sa'ud and the Future of Arabia.'
At the back of the volume (folios 245-251) are internal office notes.
- Extent and format
- 1 volume (261 folios)
- Arrangement
The volume is arrranged chronologically.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: The sequence starts on the first folio and continues to the inside back cover. The numbers are written in pencil, circled and located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Note that following f 1 are folios 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D. The sequence then continues as normal from folio 2. There are two other foliation systems present but both are inconsistent and neither are circled.
- Written in
- English and French in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- IOR/R/15/1/568
- Title
- 'File 61/11 V (D 95) Hejaz - Nejd, Miscellaneous'
- Pages
- front, back, spine, edge, head, tail, front-i, 1r:1v, 1ar:1ev, 8v:11v, 15r:43v, 45v:56v, 59r:64r, 69v:118v, 120v:127v, 128v:133v, 134v:149v, 151v:161v, 162v:164v, 166r:166v, 168r:171v, 172v:174v, 175v:179v, 181r:201r, 202v:212v, 222r:225r, 226r:243v, 244v:256v, back-i
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence