'File 8/7 I Jidda Intelligence Reports' [‎73v] (146/536)

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then “ it's all fair pulling.’’
Meanwhile he is building himself a country seat
near Jedda.
290. The Government's external debt still amounts to nearly £200,000 gold.
It is comprised of some £50,000 owing to the Poles (vide paragraph 70), at least
£25,000 owing to the Bahrein Qusaibis, £30.000 to the Soviets, £15,000 to the
Shell Company, £15,000 to the Standard Oil Company, £15,000 to the Marconi
Company, £10,000 to the Government of India, £10,000 to German firms, £5,000
to the Nederlandische Handel-Maatschappij, £2,500 to the Eastern Telegraph
Company, and £1,700 to His Majesty's Government. £40,000 worth of these
commitments mature finally in November (most of the rest are rotten with age),
and £25,000 worth have been discounted and even rediscounted in Europe.
Perhaps the safe marked “ Debts " really has got something in it.
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Eco7iomics.
291. Hejazi merchants placed some £150,000 abroad during the summer,
it was reliably learned in October, in payment chiefly for stocks for the coming
pilgrimage, about which hopes have run unreasonably high. An all-round increase
of customs dues is being considered. In October some £500 worth of contraband
tobacco was publicly burned in Mecca; it is easy to smuggle into creeks by dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. ,
especially to the north of Jedda. It was only burned by the authorities because
they found no money in it, the duty on tobacco being 90 piastres a kilog., while
this stuff was of a grade which would not fetch at auction more than 35 piastres
a kilog. Rather than attempt to sell it retail, they preferred to rid the market of
it in the hope, perhaps fond, that importers would now patronise the Customs.
Wireless.
292. Saudi Arabia is now knit by a network of twenty-two wireless stations,
the last of which is in process of completion at Riyadh; these are supplemented
by six mobile sets. The two capital stations, Mecca and Riyadh, are relatively
powerful—6 kw. Marconis. The rest are \ kw. installations, nine of them
consisting of modern Marconi telegraphy and telephony plant, but with single
aerial permitting only one-way communication—namely, those at A1 Ula, Tabuk,
Qaf or Qaryat-al-Milh, Skaka, Bureyda, Jubail, Qatif, Uqair and Hufuf; the
other eleven are old Turkish-installed Telefunken telegraphy plants, namely,
those at Jizan, Abba, Qunfida. Taif, Jedda, Rabigh, Yanbu, Medina, A1 Wejh,
Dhaba, and Hail. All these latter, except the last, are relics of the Turkish
domination of Asir and the Hejaz; that at Hail is a relic of their association with
the then semi-independent Rashidi Amirate.
293. Thus Ibn Saud now has a chain of seven wireless stations in Red Sea
ports, a string of six stations a little way inland of these, a line of five stations
down the centre of the peninsula and a group of four stations on the Persian
Gulf; plus four mobile motor plants and two hand sets.
Legislation.
294. Part of a “ Regulation to Facilitate Business Transactions " was
published in September. A “ Regulation Respecting the Ministry of Finance "
began publication in October.
('ommittee of Virtue.
295. As is usual between pilgrimage seasons, this Puritan committee's!
soldiers have recently again been maltreating the Mecca population, which from
nil accounts thoroughly deserves it.
Locusts.
296. As a result of a further attempt by Sir Andrew Ryan, made in
conversation with Fuad Bey Hamza on the 1st September, to induce some sort of
co-operation in the Saudi Government by the observation and reporting of locust
swarms, a short memorandum was prepared in the Legation summarising in
simple form the kind of information required. This Fuad Bey undertook in
October to have distributed in Arabic, with a further promise to furnish the
Legation with any reports received from the interior. The Nejd breeding grounds
are believed to be of importance.