Coll 6/19 'Arabia: (Saudi Arabia) Hejaz-Nejd Annual Report.' [‎143r] (286/540)

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130. It is probable that pressure on the taxpayer had a greater effect on
revenue than new legislation. The Director of Finance of Hasa boasted privately
in May that he had increased the revenue of that province tenfold. Mention has
already been made of tribesmen in the Southern Hejaz, who complained that their
capacity to pay had been exhausted by the exactions of the authorities. Levies
‘in the nature of forced loans may have been imposed in certain towns, but the
evidence of this is fragmentary and not entirely convincing.
131. Drafts on customs, a method of anticipating revenue from the duties
on newly imported goods, continued to be used in certain cases despite half
hearted attempts to get away from the system. They seemed to be still fairly
widely held in December, when alarm was created by a report that they were to
be refused at the custom-house, a report, which if true, was followed by the
abrogation of the decision.
132. There were probably certain attempts to administrative economy, and
in any case official salaries displayed their usual tendency to fall into arrear.
It was said early in the year that certain arrears had been written off altogether
and a cut would appear to have been applied to current salaries.
133. The above review suggests various possible explanations of how the
Minister of Finance contrived to weather a difficult period. There is so little
publicity and so little uniformity of method or orderliness that the financial
position can only be indicated in the general terms that have been used. No
general budget has been published since the simulacrum of one in January 1932.
In the Report mentioned in paragraph 124 above, the Legislative Council naively
admitted that, while they had dealt with some subsidiary budgets, no general
budgets had, under higher orders, been submitted to them during the two years
under review, ending in April 1934.
134. No effort was made to deal with the floating debt. In particular, the
position regarding the debts to His Majesty’s Government in the United
Kingdom and the Government of India remained unchanged (see paragraph 73
above).
135. The monetary situation also underwent no important change. It was
thought that the silver riyal might slump after the pilgrimage, which sends up
its value temporarily owing to the demand for currency. It remained, however,
unexpectedly steady, although, as before, at rates far below its theoretical legal
value of 10 to the English gold pound. The approximate market rates were
24 to the pound gold on the 31st December, 1933, 23 on the 31st March, 1934,
i.e., in the height of the pilgrimage season, 24| on the 31st July, and 22J at the
end of the year.
Economic Conditions and, Development.
136. Internal economic conditions remained much the same as in 1933. No
material is available for a coherent picture of conditions in this respect in tribal
areas. Rain came late in the winter of 1933-34, but it did come at last in a good
part of the northern regions of Saudi Arabia. It came early and plentifully in
the winter of 1934-35. More need not be said except that the Saudi Yemen war
too must have produced its effects. It helped to produce or to prolong an unusual
dislocation of the tribes in the north-east. It brought the King’s bounty in the
autumn to those who had fought for him. It intensified the exactions of the tax
collectors in at least one area, namely, the part of the Southern Hejaz already
mentioned, and doubtless elsewhere. Little was heard of the state of affairs in
the more remote towns. Mecca and Jedda may have been a little less depressed.
Black poverty continued to prevail in and around Medina. It was announced in
November that the King had ordered seed to be distributed in certain areas in
order that advantage might be taken of the early rains.
137. Much was again heard of projects, mostly, though not all, vague, to
develop the resources of Saudi Arabia. The ex-Khedive of Egypt was no longer
in the picture, but his former henchman, Abdul Hamid Shedid, had the nerve to
return to Jedda in January. Purporting to represent a concern called the Hejaz
Development Corporation (Limited), he propounded a modified scheme for a