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Coll 6/19 'Arabia: (Saudi Arabia) Hejaz-Nejd Annual Report.' [‎67r] (134/540)

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The record is made up of 1 file (268 folios). It was created in 18 Apr 1931-18 May 1945. It was written in English. 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. .

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39
Sir R. Bullard to be the most important advantages enjoyed by Italy over the
British Empire in this respect, viz. :—
“ (1) It is we who are imposing the detested Zionist policy on Palestine.
(2) Italy is the friend of Germany, who has put the Jews in their place.
Many Arabs are ‘ anti-Semites ’ apart from the Zionist question
especially the Moslems of French North Africa, where under French
protection the Jews have emerged from the Ghetto and acquired wealth
and social position on a scale very galling to the Moslem, whose anti-
Jew feeling goes gack to Mohammed. .
(3) In the struggle about Ethiopia Italy appears to the east to have inflicted
a defeat on a large group of Powers led by His Majesty’s Govern
ment ; and in the east it is force that counts. .
(4) It is true that Italy has a bad record in Tripoli and is now ruler ot
Moslems in Ethiopia, but she is striving hard to cover up the past m
the first case, and is able, with some show of reason, to represent
herself in the other as having rescued the Moslems from a barbarous
non-Moslem Government. In any case both these countries aie farther
from the centre of things than those territories of the Near and Middle
East with which we have special relations, from the treaty arrange
ments with Egypt and Iraq, through the apparently eternal mandate
on Palestine and complete possession of the new colony of Aden, to
the vaguer rights which we possess over the Arab States of the 1 ersian
Gulf. ^ The main wave of Arab Nationalist feeling finds itself
restrained by Great Britain, and has too much to do in assaulting those
immediate bariers to trouble much at present about the leefs in
distant Italian Tripoli and Ethiopia.
(5) In Spain the Moors are fighting on the same side as the Italians and
taking revenge on the Spanish Government for the defeat of Granada
over four centuries ago.”
The form of propaganda of which we had had most reason to complain in
Jedda viz the distribution of Arabic newspapers by the Italian Legation, had
been in abeyance for some months, and Sir R. Bullard suggested (wrongly as it
turned out)' that a practice which had been adopted in the heat of the Ethiopian
crisis would perhaps not be resorted to in less abnormal times. The purchase of
newspapers and politicians was anti-British enough, both in purpose and in
effect but we could not stop that nor compete with it, nor even prove to the world
that it went on. Some instruments of propaganda, such as the exhibition of films
and the provision of schools, could not be used in Saudi Arabia, Italian shipping
in the Red Sea was less impressive than had been expected, and anyhow only
affected the single port of Jedda; the Italian wireless was so biased that it would
tend to discredit itself; the propaganda by means of aviation had not been
welcome; and the subsidising of pilgrims, who boasted of the subsidy as proof of
Italian benevolence, might arouse suspicion of Italian motives. In any case,
Sir R Bullard suggested, it would be difficult for us to compete with the Italians
on their lines The ordinary Englishman would have to change his character to
be the national tub-thumper the Italian seemed to be by instinct. Moreover, he
said, “Fascist propaganda, with its simple doctrines of discipline and force,
has the more nebulous British appeal at a disadvantage, just as to compare
great thing with greater—Christianity in pagan Afiica finds itself at a dis
advantage m comparison with Islam, with its complete hiik of philosophy, its
offer of a material heaven, and its five simple rules which postulate no virtue
except charity to the poor.”
150. Sir R. Bullard did not feel well qualified to advise as to the type of
book to be used in schools in the Middle East. It had been well obseived, he
remarked, that teaching methods mattered at least as much as the books used. In
an England dominated by Germany it might be possible to impose the use of Mein
Kamvf as a text-book, but if the teachers were English the product would hardly
conform to Nazi standards. Perhaps profit could be drawn from a suggestion
made by Mr. F. S. Marvin that in school text-books in all countries stress should
be laid on matters of common concern to all nations, such as the ti nimphs of
science the spread of socialised medicine, the community of great art, the spread
of intercourse by aviation, and the many oihei things which derive, from all

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Content

This file contains copies of annual reports regarding the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd (later Saudi Arabia) during the years 1930-1938 and 1943-1944.

The reports were produced by the British Minister at Jedda (Sir Andrew Ryan, succeeded by Sir Reader William Bullard) and sent to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (and in the case of these copies, forwarded by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the Under-Secretary of State for India), with the exception of the reports for 1943 and 1944, which appear to have been produced and sent by His Majesty's Chargé d’Affaires at Jedda, Stanley R Jordan.

The reports covering 1930-1938 discuss the following subjects: foreign relations; internal affairs; financial, economic and commercial affairs; military organisation; aviation; legislation; press; education; the pilgrimage; slavery and the slave trade; naval matters. The reports for 1943 and 1944 are rather less substantial. The 1943 report discusses Arab affairs, Saudi relations with foreign powers, finance, supplies, and the pilgrimage, whilst the 1944 report covers these subjects in addition to the following: the activities of the United States in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East Supply Centre, and the Saudi royal family.

The file includes a divider which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.

Extent and format
1 file (268 folios)
Arrangement

The papers are arranged in approximate chronological order from the rear to the front of the file.

Physical characteristics

Foliation: the main foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1 and terminates at the last folio with 269; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located at the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. An additional foliation sequence is present in parallel between ff 2-12 and ff 45-268; these numbers are also written in pencil but are not circled.

Written in
English in Latin script
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Coll 6/19 'Arabia: (Saudi Arabia) Hejaz-Nejd Annual Report.' [‎67r] (134/540), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/12/2085, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100036362870.0x000087> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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