مجموعة ٦ / ٨ (١) "سلسلة مطبوعة: ١٩٢٩ إلى ١٩٣٨". [ظ‎‎٣‎٤] (١٠٦٢/٧٣)

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, . x p ^ imirnev was purely scientific, and lie had, in
in Jedda. The object of 3 f ^ w hich. he hoped would be of use to
fact, collected a great mass of mformationv^ a hundred Through _
science, and had established thi .^^ ^ had had with Ibn gau( i was that>
out the expedition the on ^ p e was within reach of a Saudi telegraph
as a matter of courtesy, wne reporting the date of arrival and the
station he sent a telegram to the Hmg rep
probable date of departure.
, i ^ Vmd oridnally no concern with politics, he
2. To show that the 3 J intended to say about the Hadhra-
could state that he had wn Qpibam i.e., before the breakdown of one
maut before he . MuSila to try to get a new back-axle.
Of his cars compelled hmr go w ^ ^ that he had „ geen & lot of
The chapter was colour > 1 j iave wr jtten. But after the reception he
things ” about which e g ^ f or assistance he had changed
received when he applied to the Resident a ^ defend
his mmd. Having een f g which would tell the world the
would add chapters to his forthcoming ^ red tQ His
MinistCT°all IhLe fects/^ h^so proposed fo give them to the Saudi Gov-
ernment.
The criticism directed against his visit to Shabwa was entirely un-
• 1-fl a Wk iournev was on all fours with that of Bertram Thomas across
justified. Hi? 1 ^ it right in claiming that, apart from the
w e dwmaut ht'journey“y m unexplored, undemarcated territory. To
daini Shabwa and those parts for the Aden Protectorate was fantastic, for no
nrotection was afforded. Nor could the Aden authorities claim the virtue of
Cving the people thereabouts to manage their own affairs for they bombed
Vh»m The Aden attitude towards Shabwa was exactly like that of the
Italians towards Walwal at the beginning of the Italo-Ethiopian dispute,
and British policy was no more honest than that of Italy had been. The
British were trying to expand at the expense of the Arabs.
4 His policy remained what it had always been, viz., to try to obtain for
the Arabs what they were promised early in the Great War. He had chal
lenged His Majesty’s Government to publish the promises made then (the
McMahon correspondence), but with their habitual cowardice they had re
fused There were plenty of copies in Arabic to be had, but the English
correspondence ought to be published. He would tell His Majesty’s Minister
a “ secret he used to possess copies of the correspondence m English,
given to him by T. E. Lawrence, but they were stolen from him by a clerk
of his in Jedda.
5. He was interested to hear (for the first time) that the King of the
Yemen had protested to Ibn gaud, alleging that the expedition had entered
Yemen territory at Jauf and Marib. He wondered how the King had heard
about it. In point of fact, he had not gone to Marib, but had taken photo
graphs and bearings from a height from which it was visible. (Mr. Philby
evaded, or at least did not answer, the question whether the height in question
was in Yemen territory.)
6. No, it was not quite correct to say that he was asking for more for
Ibn Sand than Ibn Saud was asking for himself, though it was near the truth.
What he wanted was the establishment of the promised Arab independence
in the Arab Peninsula and the elimination of any foreign rule which conflicted
with the promises.
Mr. Philby claimed to know all about the British and Saudi proposals for
the southern frontier of Saudi Arabia and to have the two lines marked on
maps in bis possession. When His Majesty’s Minister said that in that case
he must have known that Shabwa lay well to the south of the proposed Saudi
line, he said that the position of Shabwa on the map was a long way out,
but he did not deny that Shabwa was even farther to the south than the map
shows, and therefore at a greater distance from the extreme limits claimed, by
Ibn Saud than appeared from the map.