'File 8/15 Arab Series - 1933-1939' [‎170r] (339/434)

report. It is true that the prospectors have not been at work long, and it must
also be remembered that an American company found oil at Bahrein where
the Shell Company had given up the search, but the reports from the com
pany’s experienced geologists, who seem to have covered most of the ground,
nave left the Jedda manager very gloomy. Two other possible sources of
wealth can be foreseen at present: that oil will be found in the Rub’-al-
Khali, and that somewhere in such parts of Arabia as are not included in the
Saudi Arabian Mining Syndicate’s concession gold or some other valuable
mineral will be found in quantities and in conditions that will repay the work
ing. There can be little in the commercial schemes which are discussed in
the Mecca press from time to time. It is not by selling to pilgrims small boxes
of Medina dates that the Saudi budget will be made to meet at the back,
nor by curing rather less badly the few skins the country has to export.
Several grandiose schemes, which in succession raised Saudi hopes, have come
to nothing. The chief of these were the Jedda-Mecca Railway, the Saudi
State Bank, which the ex-Khedive was supposed to be prepared to establish,
and the loan of half a million or so which the Saudi Government hoped they
could raise in England on rather vague security.
6 . For the present, then, the Saudi Government are living on the pil
grimage revenues supplemented by windfalls, such as advances in respect
of the various concessions, the purchase by the Italian Government of an
unknown number of camels at absurdly high prices, and consignments of
arms, petrol, &c., for which they have never paid. Thus, windfalls apart,
Saudi Arabia is dependent upon a source of revenue on which not even the
Hejaz alone had to live before the war, for there seems to be no doubt that the
Ottoman Government put into the Hejaz, in the way of subsidies and in over
head expenses, more than they ever got out of it. The country being depen
dent upon the pilgrimage, the size of the pilgrimage is of the first importance.
The fluctuations of this manifestation of religious enthusiasm are well known
to you. The total of overseas pilgrims this year was about 50,000. In 1927
it rose to 132,000, and in 1933 it fell to 21,000. The number of pilgrims
falls in times of economic stress, but it is also affected by national policy and
social changes, as in Soviet Russia, Turkey and Persia. No Soviet citizens,
and very few Turkish now come on the pilgrimage, and the number of Per
sians is diminishing. Statements made recently in the course of conversa
tion by members of the Persian and Afghan Legations in Jedda suggest
that their Governments regard the pilgrimage as a useless drain upon the
national resources. On the other hand, it seems likely that the increasing
feeling of Arab solidarity will help to maintain, if not to increase, the number
of pilgrims from Egypt, Syria and Palestine and perhaps Iraq, while in Moslem
countries under European rule not only will the authorities be careful not to
take any action which might be interpreted as interference with the pilgri
mage, but nationalist feeling will probably tend to encourage the pilgrimage
by using religious to supplement political feeling. But it seems unlikely
that the average number of pilgrims will increase to such a point as to enable
Ibn Saud to reduce the oppressive pilgrim dues, which he would doubtless be
glad to do not only because he would be exposed to less criticism, but for
religious reasons too.
7. I have redrawn above the familiar picture of Ibn Saud searching year
after year for normal sources of revenue, and thrown back time after time on
the most invidious, viz., levy of toll upon Moslems making the pilgrimage to
the shrine of Allah. It would not be surprising if this disposed him to class
his country with the “ have-nots ”. And it happens that with the exception
of the Yemen, which he refrained from annexing in 1935, partly out of consi
deration for pan-Arab feeling, but partly no doubt for fear of Italy, he sees
around him on the Arabian Peninsula more than one territory which he could
absorb but for His Majesty’s Government, and whose absorption would be to
his economic advantage. This does not apply to the south, for whatever
political attraction the Hadhramaut may have for him, it contains no obvious
form of material wealth. But on the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. the situation is different.
There is one small sheikh in possession of the fine natural harbour of Koweit
and a pearl fishery, and in far too favourable a position for smuggling into Saudi
territory. Another sheikh so small that Ibn Saud always refers to him by a
65(C) ExAfFairsDept