'File 8/7 I Jidda Intelligence Reports' [‎67v] (134/536)

lilies so general that the conversation was of no great interest. Sir A. Ryan made
way after an hour or so for the Soviet Minister. The King appeared to be in
much better health than when Mr. Hope Gill saw him at the beginning of May.
Ministry for Foreign A ffairs.
230. Sheikh Yussuf Yasin continued to act as Minister until the 3rd August,
when he and Fuad Bey Hamza, who had arrived at Taif from Koweit via Riyadh
on the 24th July, announced that the one had handed over and the other taken on
the business of foreign affairs. When the Amir Feisal, who had stayed behind at
Riyadh, got back on the 7th August, no further move was made. The position
appears to be that the Amir has slid back into his post as Minister for Foreign
Affairs, but that Fuad Bey is more than ever the practical head of the Ministry.
Up to the end of the month Fuad Bey continued to sign notes, sometimes saying
“ f am directed " without saying by whom. There is doubtless some game behind
this but its nature is obscure. It may be merely the game of Fuad, who affects
in any case the title of “ Deputy Minister," or there may be some truth in the
suggestion made in some quarters that the Amir is dissatisfied with the confidence
reposed by the King in Sheikh Abdullah Suleiman and is unwilling to tolerate
that gentleman's retention. If so, the Prince has had no uncertain answer from
his father, as will be seen below.
Finance.
231. There have been no public developments in the financial situation. It
is a curious thing that one has heard of late much less talk than one used to of
the depletion of the Treasury or of poverty among the public generally, and none
at all of financial stringency interfering with measures to suppress the
Ibn Rifada revolt, to subsidise the Akhwan, &c. The Government as such is
doubtless as poor as ever. Unpaid officials, merchants, &c., are probably too
sunken in depression to make much noise. The apparent abundance of money for
military and quasi-military purposes lends support to the idea that the King has
long been saving up for a rainy day.
232. The Dutch financial adviser, M. van Leeuwen, left for three months
on the 29th July, for reasons of health. These were genuine and he showed no
signs of not intending to return; nor any sign whatsoever of intending to stay
on in the Hejaz once his contract expires next year. Little is known as to what
he has done or been allowed to attempt.
233. On the 22nd August it was announced that, by Iradei Sonie (the old
Turkish expression for an Imperial decree, seldom heard under the Saudian
regime, though apparently not unprecedented), the Wakalat of Finance had been
raised to the status of a Wazarat or full Ministry, with Sheikh Abdullah Suleiman
as Minister and his brother Hamad as Wakfl, i.e., Under-Secretary, unless
Fuad Bey Hamza’s version, “ Deputy Minister,” be preferred. Previously there
had been only two Ministers called Wazarat, or possibly three including that of
Military Affairs, but all were combined with the presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. of the council in the
person of the Amir Feisal.
Economic Affairs.
234. Nothing further has been heard at the Legation of the large economic
schemes mentioned in the last report. The dullness was relieved, however, by one
bright gleam from New York. A resident in that city, Mr. L. Lincoln Glick, sent
to His Majesty's Legation a typed advance copy of a projected paper called the
“ Congress Advocate,” which promises to be a powerful 100 per cent. Islamic
American organ, and which has already received not only the moral support of
the Egyptian consulate in New York, but also 20 dollars in cash from a leading
Moslem in the United States. Mr. Glick has the progressive outlook of the
20th century, which he identified with the 16th of the Mahometan era. This latter
fact doubtless makes it all the easier for him to conceive Jedda as being the City
of Destiny, perhaps the largest in the world, a vast urban area stretching from
its present site to Rabigh, 100 miles away, served by a loop line of the Hejaz
Railway, watered from aqueducts in the mountains, the scene of an annual Islamic
Congress, the goal of throngs of visitors for whom there will be cheap travel
facilities and mammoth hotels. Nor does Mr. Glick stop there. He contemplates
an enlarged Haram area, which will apparently extend to the new Jedda, with