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road-making, introducing or improving electricity and water schemes, and so on.
The Banque Misr, after building a hotel in Jedda which is modern in form if not
in administration, has built in Mecca for the account of the Saudi Government
an immense hotel with such luxuries as baths and a lift. Egyptian finance benefits
by a scheme by which the Banque Misr collects an inclusive charge from Egyptian
pilgrims and holds at the disposal of the Saudi Government, who draw on it
by means of cheques, the proportion of the payments which represents the koshan
and the Government’s share of the cost of transport. The Banque Misr has
perhaps been a little too successful, and there have been rumours that the Saudi
Government rather resent its desire to have a finger in every pie.
Soviet Russia.
166. According to M. Khakimoff his efforts to secure payment for the oil
products supplied to the Saudi Government seven years or so ago were at last
successful. He informed His Majesty’s Minister in May that he had received
an order on Banque Misr for the payment every month of one-twelfth of the sum
due until the whole should be paid off.
167. After having been closed for some considerable time the dispensary of
the Soviet Legation was reopened in April. The new doctor, M. Stepukoff, knew
only Russian when he arrived. He informed His Majesty’s Minister soon
after his arrival that he was swamped with patients, sometimes as many as
eighty in a day, but in November he said that his daily attendance was twenty
to thirty (this was at a time when the British Indian doctor attached to His
Majesty’s Legation was seeing some two hundred patients a day).
168. The members of the Soviet Legation frequent local houses assiduously,
and it is remarked that they learn colloquial Arabic quickly. Mme. Fattahov,
wife of the secretary and herself a Turkish-speaking Moslem, spent several months
during the summer staying with the Turkish wife of the Amir Faisal.
169. The Saudi Minister in London informed the Foreign Office at one
moment that if His Majesty’s Government could not assist Ibn Saud in the
matter of aviation he might be compelled to accept a Soviet air mission, but this
was apparently a mistake (see paragraph 203).
Spain.
170. But for the civil war it is unlikely that Spain would have meant much
to Saudi Arabia for a long while to come. Such pilgrims as ever came from the
Spanish Zone of Morocco used to be dealt with in Jedda by the French Legation,
there being no representative of the Spanish Government in Saudi Arabia. The
Franco Government, however, decided by way of propaganda to subsidise the
journey to Mecca of a certain number of pilgrims from the Spanish Zone of
Morocco, by giving them passages to Jedda at very low rates, on a vessel flying
the flag of the insurgent Government, and a Spanish subject of Lebanese origin
was sent to Jedda to deal with these pilgrims, though he was soon withdrawn
and the work of supervision was handed over to the Italian Legation. The
Legation assimilated them to their Libyan pilgrims, who arrived and left by
the same steamer.
171. Fuad Bey consulted His Majesty’s Minister about the international
aspect of this affair. He said that the Spanish subject mentioned above had made
approaches to the Saudi Government about a year before, when the Spanish
Government had proposed to enter into diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia,
but the Saudi Government saw no advantage in concluding an arrangement, and
the negotiations were still dragging on when the civil war broke out. According
to Fuad Bey, the Italian Legation has asked some weeks before, on behalf of
General Franco, whether the Saudi Government would receive and give facilities
for pilgrims from the Spanish Zone of Morocco, and the Saudi Government had
given the obvious reply that all Moslems were welcome to the House of Allah,
and soon. They had no intention of recognising the Franco Government, towards
which they were in the same position as towards the Italian conquest of Ethiopia.
Eventually the leaders of the body of pilgrims from the Spanish Zone, who
brought gifts of some value for the King and other persons of importance, were