It has already been shown how favourable an action an Arabian Caliphate may be expected to exercise on the progressive thought of Islam.  That it could not be a hostile power to England is equally certain.  Whether or not the Caliph reside at Mecca, the Grand Sherifate must always there exist and the pilgrimage be continued; and we may hope the latter may then be principally under English auspices.  The regulation of the Haj is, indeed, an immediate necessary part of our duty and condition of our influence in the Mussulman world; and it is one we should be grossly in error to neglect.  It will have been seen by the table given in the first chapter that nearly the whole pilgrimage to Arabia is now made by sea, and that the largest number of pilgrims sent there by any nation comes from British territory.  With the protectorate, therefore, in the future of Egypt, and, let us hope, of Syria, England would be in the position of exercising a paramount influence on the commercial fortune of the Holy Cities.

The revenue of Hejaz derived from the Haj is computed at three millions sterling, a figure proved by the yearly excess of imports over exports in her seaports, for she produces nothing, and the patronage of half, or perhaps two-thirds, of this great revenue would make England’s a position there quite unassailable.  An interdiction of the Haj, or the threat of such for a single year, would act upon every purse among the Hejazi and neutralize the hostility of the most recalcitrant of resident caliphs or sherifs; while a systematic development of the pilgrimage as a Government undertaking, with the construction of a railway from Jeddah to Mecca, and the establishment of thoroughly well-ordered lines of steamers from the principal Mohammedan ports, all matters which would amply repay their cost, would every year add a new prestige to English influence.  This might be still further enhanced by the very simple measure of collecting and transmitting officially the revenue of the Wakaf property, entailed on the sherifs, in India.  This is said to amount to half a million sterling, and might, as in Turkey, take the form of a government subsidy.  At present it is collected privately, and reaches the sherifs reduced, as I have been told, by two-thirds in the process of collection, so that the mere assumption of this perfectly legitimate duty by the Indian authorities would put a large sum into the hands of those in office at Mecca, and a proportionate degree of power into the hands of its collectors.  This, indeed, would be no more than is being already done by our Government for the Shia Shrines of Kerbela and Meshed Ali, with results entirely beneficial to English popularity and influence.