'Administration Reports of the Persian Gulf, 1945 [-1946]' [‎71r] (154/414)

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Floodlights on the Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. did wonders of make-up
for its diurnal face. The 9th, 10th and 14th May
were public holidays. On the 14th May the poli-
tjical Agent gave an Arab dinner for His Highness
Shaikh Sir Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al Khalifah,
Ruler of Bahrain, the heads of local British and
American institutions and leading merchants.
(iv) Celebrations for V,J, DAY on the 15th August
came as somewhat of an anti-climax to that of V.E.DAY.
Celebrations were reserved and the inevitable lassitude
engendered by the month of Ramadhan undoubtedly played
its part,
(v) On the 21st December Haji Yousuf Ahmad Kanoo
died at the age of 71. piis association with His
Majesty's Government: started in 1898 in the time of
the Agent Haji Ahmad bin Abdur Rasool. He continued
to serve as Assistant until the arrival of Mr.Qasken
in 1902, and was associated with Major Prideaux and
Cap tain Mackenzie until 1909. He received-the
Kaiser-i-Hind medal, second class in 1911, the title
of^Khan Sahib in 1917 and the M.B.E. in i919. In 1924
a C.I.E. was bestowed upon him. The death of this
well known old Arab v/as marked in Bahrain by the
closing of the Bazaars for one day.
22. THE WEATHER .
Local repute has it that for ten years Bahrain
has not had weather of the severity experienced during
the month of July of the year under review. For days
and nights without intermission the steamy heat was'
intense, and there v /as no wind to relieve the atmo-
sphere^or ruffle the oily expanse of the sea. It was
during this period that the electrical system in Bahrain
struck for shorter hours of work and ceased to function
for irregular and frequent periods.
Some forty to fifty R^A.F. personnel had to be
flown out of Bahrain as a result of heat exhaustion and
severe "prickly heat", a skin disease which in its
mildest form produces nervous irritation and when severe
^an be acutely poisonous, and of which there were verv
many cases. No European or Indian during this period"
was free from it and many Arabs also were affected.
23. ECONOMIC .
(i) Banking and Currency .
With the cessation of hostilities both in the
west and in the east during the year, there was a con
siderable loosening in the regulations controlling
trade and currency which gave both the merchants and
banking authorities a chance once again to do business.
Added to this was the opening of a second banking house -
the imperial Bank of Iran - towards the close of 1944
The rates offered by the banks to businessmen had now
to be on a competitive basis. Demands for exchange were
(Continued)
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