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lightened, with the rest to ports in Hasa. The Bahrein Government reinforced
stringent, though, perhaps, legitimate measures to preserve their entrepot trade by
the very doubtful means of requiring payment of Bahrein dues on cargo for Hasa
carried on those conditions. A particular case in which a ship had refused
compliance and preferred to carry its Bahrein cargo on to Hasa ports, provoked
the Saudi Government to protest on the 15th November, and to raise with His
Majesty’s Government the general question of a definite settlement in regard to
customs and transit dues between Bahrein and the mainland. This matter was
outstanding at the end of the year.
(B) With Powers outside Arabia.
Saudi Mission to Europe.
54. Ibn Baud decided in March, probably at the suggestion of Fuad Bey
Hamza, to send a mission to the capitals of friendly countries. This mission, the
principal members of which were his son the Amir Feisal and Fuad Bey, visited
all the countries with which Saudi Arabia has definite relations, with the
exception of the United States of America and Afghanistan. It sailed in an
Italian liner, which put in specially at Jedda to embark it. In its later peregrina
tions it made several journeys by air. Although anything of importance that is
known of its proceedings will be mentioned in the following sub-sections, the
demonstration as a whole was sufficiently impressive to merit this short general
account. It must have cost an impoverished country, or perhaps the King, who
is not quite so poor, a pretty penny; but it helped to consolidate relations and to
make Saudi Arabia better known to the outside world.
55. The following is a list of the places visited, with dates, which are, how
ever, only approximate in some cases : Rome, April 19 to 25; Geneva, short stay,
dates uncertain, between Rome and Paris; Paris, May 2 to 7; London, May 7 to
16; The Hague, May 16 to 20; Berlin, May 20 to 24; Warsaw, May 24 to 28;
Moscow, May 29 to June 5; Constantinople, June 8 to 11 and again on return
from Angora; Angora, June 12 to 15, or a little longer; Tehran, July 1 to 5;
Bagdad, July 8 to 11; Koweit, July 11 to 18.
56. There were one or two scandalous stories of feminine interest in
connexion with the Amir's departure from the Hejaz. Once in Europe he appears
to have behaved with decorum. In London he discharged his duties as head of
the mission with grace, distinction and modesty, showing to much better
advantage than he does in his own country. There and presumably elsewhere he
left all serious business in the hands of Fuad Bey. He is said to have found the
latter wearing and bumptious towards the end of the tour. At Koweit his decorum
broke down. He and a brother who met him engaged in the night life of that
place in a manner which scandalised the sheikh and the inhabitants.
British Commonwealth.
57. This sub-section deals exclusively with the relations between Saudi
Arabia and His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, as no question
arose in 1932 between the Saudi Government and the Dominions, and any
questions of important concern to the Governments of British dependencies find
a place elsewhere in the report.
58. Various events in 1931 imposed a considerable strain on the relations
between His Majesty’s Government and Ibn Saud. They had however, remained
correct and fundamentally friendly, and in January 1932 the outlook was no
unpromising as regards the Transjordan Used in three contexts: the geographical region to the east of the River Jordan (literally ‘across the River Jordan’); a British protectorate (1921-46); an independent political entity (1946-49) now known as Jordan frontier, which had been responsib e oi
much of the trouble in 1931. Unfortunately the relations between the two
countries were again temporarily clouded in February and March by a \eiy
different affair.
59. In December 1931 a slave named Bakhit took refuge in the Biitish
Legation. He had fled from the house of Sheikh Abdullah Suleiman, the
Director-General of Finance, who would appear to be also responsible for the
King’s establishment of slaves. The Saudi Government affirmed that Bakhit was
the property of the King and invoked an oral undertaking said to have been
odven by Sir G. Clayton when negotiating the letters attached to the liea y o
Jedda, that the Legation would not give asylum to or manumit the King s own
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