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stand high in Ibn Sand’s favour and who have a commercial interest in the
possibility of pearling flights. In October Fuad Bey Hamza displayed interest
in the Interna tional Air Convention to the extent of asking the Lega tion in Jed da
for a copy of it.
VII.— Legislation.
144. Moslem law, as understood by the Wahhabis, is the common law of
Hejaz-Nejd and is supposed to govern all matters. The Constitution of the
Hejaz (see paragraph 112) provides, however, for legislation by the King on the
advice of a consultative council. A number of regulations have, in fact, been
issued in recent years, some of them dealing with important matters It is
difficult to get a complete or general view of this body of law owing to the fact
that it has not been officially collected, nor is there anything in the nature of an
“ Official Gazette.” Laws and regulations appear in the columns of the
“ Umm-al-Qura ” newspaper and get bulled in its files.
145. The extent of the difficulty was amusingly illustrated in 1930, when
the Foreign Office, in order to oblige the Librarian of Congress at Washington,
instructed the Legation in Jedda to furnish a list of Hejaz-Nejd official publica
tions and to provide information as to the best means of obtaining copies. In a
reply of the 23rd November to a private letter from His Majesty’s Charge
d’Affaires, the then Acting Minister for F'oreign Affairs forwarded a list, on the
understanding that he could not vouch for its completeness. He promised to
enquire of other authorities about their publications. As for copies, he could not
indicate any place in which they could be obtained, but he undertook to do his
best to get as complete a collection as possible.
146. Fuad Bey’s list presumably included only publications in separate
pamphlet form. That may be why it did not mention the Constitution itself or,
for instance, the Hejazi Law on Nationality, which has been a subject of frequent
discussion with his own department since its promulgation in 1926. bo far as
it went, however, it was sufficiently imposing, as, in addition to certain treaties,
it mentioned fourteen regulations on the following subjects :—
Pi •ess and printed publications
Municipal matters.
Registration of deaths of pilgrims and the disposal of their effects.
Curriculum of preparatory schools.
Schools.
Ministry of Finance.
Registration of companies.
Distribution of charitable funds.
Motor service between Jedda and Mecca.
Stamp duties.
Vaccination.
Customs.
Hejaz currency.
Motor service between Jedda and Medina.
147. It is hoped to deal more satisfactorily with this subject in the annual
report for 1931.
VIII.— Press.
148. The Hejaz possesses one newspaper, the l ' Umm-al-Qura, which is
published weekly on Friday in Mecca It is to all intents and purposes a
ment paper, although it is not in theory official. It is a good deal controlled by
Sheikh Yussuf Yasin, the King’s private secretary and factotum, a young Syrian
with a prolific pen of his own. The views expounded by the paper on political
and religious subjects are those of the King and his Government. The paper has
little value as a news-sheet, but gives a certain amount of useful information of
a local kind, mostly in regard to what happens in Mecca and Jedda.