IOR/L/PS/12/2067

This volume largely consists of copies of Foreign Office correspondence (forwarded by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the Under-Secretary of State for India) regarding reported raids on the frontier between Transjordan and the Kingdom of the Hejaz and Nejd (later Saudi Arabia). Most of this correspondence consists of copies of letters and telegrams between the Foreign Office and the British Minister at Jedda, Sir Andrew Ryan, as well as translated copies of correspondence between Ryan and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs for the Kingdom of the Hejaz and Nejd (later Saudi Arabia). The volume also contains India Office correspondence with the Foreign Office and Air Ministry.

The correspondence is chiefly concerned with reported raids carried out on the Transjordan frontier by tribes from Nejd and Transjordan. Much of the Foreign Office correspondence discusses the efforts of the British to arrange a meeting between Captain John Bagot Glubb (recently appointed as British Intelligence Officer attached to the Transjordan Bedouin Control Board) and his counterpart, Abdul Aziz Ibn Zeid [‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin Zeid], in order to resolve respective claims regarding raids from August 1930 to February 1931, and to make arrangements for the future intercommunication of information.

Also discussed are the following:

• An alleged crossing into Hejazi-Nejdi territory by British aircraft and cars from Transjordan.
• A proposed extradition treaty between Transjordan and the Kingdom of the Hejaz and Nejd.
• Reports of meetings between Glubb and Abdul Aziz Ibn Zeid.
• The question of nationality in relation to certain tribes on the Transjordan and Hejaz-Nejd frontier (namely the Beni Atiya [Banū ʿAṭiyya] and the Atun, which Ryan describes as being a section of the Howeitat [Banū al- Ḥuwayṭāt]).

In addition to correspondence the volume contains copies of minutes from meetings in early 1931 of the Committee of Imperial Defence's Standing Official Sub-Committee for questions concerning the Middle East, which discuss possible measures (such as the withdrawal of the British Minister at Jedda) that the British could take in the event of Ibn Saud returning 'an unsatisfactory answer' to British demands relating to the situation on the Transjordan and Hejaz-Nejd frontier. Also included are copies of memoranda from Glubb, one of which responds to complaints made against him by the Minister for Foreign Affairs for the Hejaz and Nejd.

Other correspondents besides those already mentioned include the Secretary of State for Colonies, the Colonial Office, the High Commissioner for Transjordan (Sir John Robert Chancellor, succeeded by Arthur Grenfell Wauchope), the British Resident at Transjordan (Charles Henry Fortnom Cox), and His Majesty's Chargé d’Affaires at Jedda (Cecil Gervase Hope Gill).

The volume includes three dividers which give a list of correspondence references contained in the volume by year. These are placed at the back of the correspondence.