'Administration Report of the Persian Gulf for the Year 1938' [‎9r] (17/60)

5
2. The possibility of bringing drinking water for Bushire Town from the
rivers Mund and bhahpur and also the possibility of effectively damming these
rivers lor irrigation purposes has been investigated by two engineers. It is
understood that both the engineers considered that the damming of the rivers
for irrigation purposes was practicable. One of them hopes to be able to
obtain drinking water for the town from Khaviz or from Halilah. He is
said to be surveying the country and sinking experimental borings at Halilah.
3. In spite of the removal of some of the tribal chiefs from their districts
to the interior of the country by the Iranian Military Authorities there were
still two or three gangs of malcontents at large in the mountains. These
gangs were responsible for a number of raids on villages and caravans passing
from one village to another.
SECTION 7.
MANUMISSION.
During 1938, the following numbers of slaves were manumitted :—
Bahrain Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. ......... n
Sharjah Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. 122
Muscat Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. 57
H. D. RUSHTON,
Secretary to the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
SECTION 8.
TRADE AND TRADE FACILITIES.
1. General Conditions. —During the year under review there has been no
improvement in the trade of Bushire. Apart from one or two merchants
who import a small quantity of general goods for sale in the locality most of
the merchants have been occupied solely in doing a forwarding business.
In fact, this forwarding business is now all that is keeping the port of Bushire
alive. All the important merchants have migrated either to Shiraz or
1 ehran, leaving only small establishments here to clear goods from the
Customs.
The clearance of goods from the Customs, particularly for import, has
been very slow, owing to the many restrictions imposed by the Exchange
Control Commission which apparently could not redeem bills from the bankers.
In January a new Government scheme came into force. Exporters were
required to account for only 50 per cent, of the sale proceeds of their goods to
the Control Committee and were allowed to import goods against the remain
ing 50 per cent. Even that was of little assistance to Bushire trade, since the
stample Iranian products are in the hands of the monopolies and other types
of goods are in very small demand abroad.
In a further attempt to enable merchants to clear their goods from the
Customs the Government allowed third-class category goods freedom of
export and the sale proceeds of such goods were allowed to be paid against
goods already lying in Customs. This to some small extent helped local
dealers both to export and to import. Transport services during the year
did rather badly but were kept going by carrying monopoly goods such as
sugar and tea as well as Anglo-Iranian Oil Company products.
During the year the piecegoods monopoly as a private concern was
abolished because the monopoly agents were selling monopoly goods above
the fixed rate. The Government, therefore, took the business into its own
hands and a branch of the Government Monopoly in Piecegoods was opened
in Bushire during May. At first the very heavy local demand caused some
difficulty but permission was very wisely given to various shopkeepers to buy
a limited amount of piecegoods from the Monopoly and retail them, provided
the prices asked were those fixed by the Government. The dividend paid
by the old Piecegoods Monopoly was 30 per cent, and by the Sugar and Tea