IOR/L/PS/18/B367

This printed memorandum deals with the question of the political and financial obligations that the British Government should in future incur in relation to Arabia, in view of the forthcoming negotiations in Paris between Britain, France and the other allied powers on the subject of Arabia [the Paris Peace Conference, 1919-20]. The memorandum is signed 'H. W. Y.' [Major Hubert Winthrop Young].

Arabia is defined in the memorandum as the area bounded on the north-west by the peninsula of Sinai and the British mandate of Palestine and Trans-Jordan; on the north-east by the British mandate of Mesopotamia; on the east by the Persian Gulf; on the south-east by the Indian Ocean; and the west by the Red Sea.

The memorandum includes draft treaty proposals of the British delegation to Paris (Appendix A, folios 4-5), and the main body of the document discusses the articles of the proposed treaty in relation to the various constituent parts of the Arabian peninsula, as defined by the British, including the Kingdom of the Hedjaz [Hejaz, al-Ḥijāz], Nejd [Najd], Yemen, and the Gulf littoral states. The memorandum asserts the right of the British Government to recognition of their special position in Arabia in view of Britain's longstanding relations with many of the region's rulers (folio 1). There are three further appendices: Appendix B (folios 5-6) contains transcriptions of relevant correspondence issued by the Foreign Office and the India Office, dated 1919-20, relating to the sub-divisions into which Arabia had been divided for the purposes of the document; Appendix C (folios 7-8) contains minutes of a meeting held at the Foreign Office on 17 April [1920] to discuss the question of subsidies to Arab rulers; and Appendix D (folios 8-10) contains a Foreign Office memorandum dated 13 July 1920 concerning the question of the continuance of financial support by the British Government to King Hussein [Ḥusayn bin ‘Alī al-Hāshimī] of the Hejaz.