Coll 6/19 'Arabia: (Saudi Arabia) Hejaz-Nejd Annual Report.' [‎134v] (269/540)

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45. The position of His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom in
regard to Koweit was reviewed in February in letters exchanged between the
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. and the Foreign Office. This important correspondence dealt with
only one matter directly concerning the sheikh’s relations with Ibn Sand, namely,
the question how to obviate the disadvantages incidental to direct correspondence
between them on official subjects. After consideration of alternatives, it
decided to sound the sheikh on a proposal that all correspondence should pas^r
through British channels, i.e., the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. and the Legation in Jedda.
The sheikh’s reception of the suggestion was so unfavourable that it was
eventually decided not to pursue it, at any rate until the question of the Koweit
oil concession had been disposed of.
46. Another question dealt with in the correspondence mentioned above
bears indirectly on the relations between Ibn Saud and the Sheikh of Koweit,
namely, that of the nature and extent of the responsibility of His Majesty’s
Government in the United Kingdom for the protection of Koweit.
47. Concurrently with the examination of these and the other matters dealt
with in the correspondence, His Majesty’s Government returned to the question
of measures to bring the Koweit blockade to an end. This question passed through
various phases, which included conversations with Ibn Saud himself, when
Sir Andrew Ryan visited Taif, and with Fuad Bey in London in September.
It was foreshadowed in the latter conversation that the matter might figure
prominently in eventual Anglo-Saudi negotiations after Sir Andrew Ryan’s
return to Jedda. It seemed necessary, however, in view of the circumstances
described in last year’s report, to get a clear situation in the first instance with
the Sheikh of Koweit. On the 31st October the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. was instructed,
unless he saw objection, to take a favourable opportunity of informing the sheikh
that, while it would be necessary to begin by renewing the proposal that the
questions at issue should be examined jointly by Saudi and Koweiti
commissioners, His Majesty’s Government would be prepared, if that solution
failed, to seek a settlement on the basis favoured by the sheikh himself, namely,
that customs posts should be established inside Saudi territory. They could not,
of course, guarantee success, but they would use their best endeavours, subject
to an essential preliminary, namely, that the sheikh should abandon his old
claims against Ibn Saud, with the exception of one item. They considered that
his position in regard to the claims generally had been hopelessly compromised.
48. These instructions treated the matter as one of some urgency, but the
Resident was to have regard also to the desirability of not provoking the sheikh
to unfavourable reactions in other directions, e.g., in connexion with the then
pending negotiations for an oil concession. In the event the communication was
deferred until January 1935.
49. The question of an oil concession for the Koweit Neutral Zone, which
can only be granted jointly by Ibn Saud and the Sheikh of Koweit, also engaged
much attention during the year. As it made no substantial progress, it will
suffice to sum up the situation as it stood when it was discussed with Fuad Bey
in London in September.
50. The Saudi Government had, when granting the Hasa concession to the
Standard Oil Company of California in 1933, given that company an option in
regard to their rights in the Neutral Zone. The terms of the option, which they
disclosed confidentially to His Majesty’s Government in May 1934, were involved
but gave the Standard Oil Company a definite hold. The Government nevertheless
treated, as though they were free, with another concern which had been formed
under the name of the Arabian Development Syndicate (Limited), and in which a
Mr. Ydlibi of Manchester, a naturalised Briton of Syrian origin, and the Eastern
and General Syndicate (Limited) were interested/ Early in the year, indeed,
they went as far as they could go, without committing themselves in writing,
towards promising the concession, so far as they were concerned, to the Ydlibi
group. On the Koweit side, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company were more vaguely
interested in the eventual oil potentialities of the Neutral Zone, but they could
not seek a concession there except on behalf of the Iraq Petroleum Company. In
any case they were concentrating their attention on the negotiations for a
concession in Koweit proper in favour of the Koweit Oil Company, a combination
which had been arranged between themselves and the American Gulf Oil
Company.