Coll 6/19 'Arabia: (Saudi Arabia) Hejaz-Nejd Annual Report.' [‎142r] (284/540)

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Ibn Saud gave him guarantees, supported by an oath, that he would not interfere
with Teima. Another explanation is that Ibn Rumman has not only got walls
but three field pieces, and that it would require artillery to reduce him.
119. It cannot be affirmed that Ibn Saud has no internal troubles to cope
g^with. One hears increasingly of missions of inspection, investigation and
reorganisation being sent hither and thither. These may sometimes be intended
to allay discontent, as in the case of one sent to the Southern Hejaz in or about
August to deal with complaints that over-taxation had reduced tribes there to a
penury so great that they could no longer pay. Other missions may be directed
to the task of organising the Saudi administration in areas where it has been
imperfect or areas like Asir and Najran, in which the authority of Ibn Saud
was at last definitely affirmed by the Saudi-Yemen Treaty of May 1934.
120. Whether his troubles be great or small, the King showed no outward
signs in 1934 of being discomposed by them. He departed little from his ordinary
routine during his quarrel with the Yemen and after it. He moved from Nejd
to Mecca for the pilgrimage in March; from Mecca to his summer capital at Taif
in May; and from Taif back to Riyadh in September to distribute largesse to
those who had fought for him.
121. One of Ibn Saud’s most notable successes during his recent career has
been that he has reduced to impotence or even bound to his cause families who were
in the past his enemies. He could boast to Sir Andrew Ryan in July that the
descendants of the Bani Rashid of Hail were with his own sons at the front, and
that the sons of Feisal-ad-Dawish, his doughtiest opponent in the 1929 rebellion,
were there too. When he obtained the surrender of the Idrisis of Asir, he could
afford to allow them to reside in the Hejaz, instead of putting them in cold storage
in Riyadh. One of the great questions now is whether his system can stand
strains at the centre. Ibn Saud himself has lost some of his grip on the machine
of government. The bouts of hunting and pleasure may be taking too much out of
him at the age of 55. Many tales are told of dissension in the Royal family. They
are too highly coloured to be all true, but there are fairly definite indications that
the intended succession of the King’s eldest son is not received with favour by
other princes, despite their acceptance of it in 1933. Apart from these family
differences, there is a more or less clearly defined division of opinion in the King s
entourage between those who believe that Saudi Arabia should be run on old-
fashioned lines under the personal rule of the King and those who would like to
see her institutions and the whole system modernised.
Constitutional Development and Administration.
122. Nothing was heard during the year of any steps to give effect to the
decision mentioned in paragraph 114 of the report for 1933 to provide a single
Constitution for the whole of Saudi Arabia. It is possible that this unpractical
proposal has been shelved. There has, however, been some tendency to regard the
constitutional machinery at present in existence as being, for certain purposes,
concerned with the whole country and not only with the Hejaz, as when a single
decree established the same customs tariff for both sides of Ibn Saud s dominions.
123. At least two changes were made in the central machinery in 1934. A
decree published on the 22nd June merged the Ministry of the Interior in the
Presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. of the Council of Ministers. The language of the decree was somewhat
obscure, leaving it doubtful whether it was a merger of administrative services
only or whether the post of Minister of the Interior, as such, had ceased to exist.
As the Amir Feisal had previously been both President of the Council and
• Minister of the Interior, as well as" Minister for Foreign Affairs, there was no
change in high places to elucidate this problem. Subsequent decrees mentioned
the Ministry of the Interior, as though it still existed, but even that cannot be
regarded as certain evidence in a country in which draughtmanship is so sloppy.
The other change was the appointment of the Minister of Finance in September
to the additional post of Deputy Minister of Defence, a post which would appear
to have been thereby newly created.
124. The consultative Legislative Council deserves a word, because of its
industry and the continuousness of its existence on the lines laid down in the present
Constitution. Though of little real present importance it might conceivably serve
as the embryo of a more effective Council of State in a more orderly constitutional