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as the "King of Arabia," and there is a sporadic crop of ill-informed articles on this and other Arabian affairs in the English Press. One of the features of the War as regards this part of the world is the extraordinary and fungus-like growth of "Arabian experts" it has produced, most of whom have never set foot in Arabia itself, while the few now living who have acquired real first-hand knowledge of any part of the Arabian peninsula before the War may be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet the number of people who rush into print with their opinions on the most complex Arabian affairs would astonish even the Arabs if they permitted themselves to show surprise at anything. These opinions differ widely, but have one attribute in common--their emphatic "cock-sureness." Each one presents the one and only solution of the whole Arabian problem according to the facet which the writer has seen, and there are many facets. They are amusing and even instructive occasionally, but there is a serious side to them--their crass empiricism. Each writer presents (quite honestly, perhaps) his point of view of one or two facets in the rough-cut, many-sided and clouded crystal of Arabian politics without considering its possible bearing on other parts of the peninsula or even other factors in the district he knows or has read about. The net result is an appallingly crude patchwork, no one piece harmonising with another, and, in view of the habit Government has formed in these cases of accepting empirical opinions if they are shouted loud enough or at close range, there is more than a possibility that our Arabian policy may resemble such a crazy quilt. If it does, we shall have to harvest a thistle-crop of tribal and intertribal trouble throughout the Arabian peninsula, and the seed-down of unrest will blow all over Syria and Mesopotamia just at the most awkward time when reconstruction and sound administration are struggling to establish themselves. Weeds grow quicker and stronger than useful plants in any garden. Empirical statements sound well and look well in print, but they are no use whatever as sailing directions in the uncharted waters of Arabian politics. Putting them aside, the following facts are worth bearing in mind when the future of Arabia is discussed. The Hejazi troops were ably led by the Sharifian Emirs and Syrian officers of note, and had the co-operation of the Red Sea flotilla on the coast and British officers
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