Coll 30/5(1) 'Persian Gulf Diaries: Bushire Residency (Persian) Jany. [sic] 1941.' [‎81r] (162/938)

an'i the owner of a consignment of 105 ba^s of potatoes
appealed to the Governor and the Chamber of Commerce
a ainst military interference in trade matters. The
c.se is still under investigation. As far as the Customs
are co cerned foodstuffs 3 exceptin,. dates > are not on the
prohibited list for export and if the action of the mili
tary authorities continues it will cause considerable
losses to Bu_.hire merchants.
31. The cereal stock position is as followsJ-
Whe a t
29
tons.
Barley
152
tons.
More wheat is said to be on the way from ohiraz.
32. It was reported in paragraph 24 of Shiraz Diary
for November 15th - 30th s 1944> that ohiraz Khurbar
department had made an interest^*;, M discovery" that
Fathullah Khan Hint Baud had taken an adv .nee of ten
million rials as well as monopoly poods for wheat deliveries
in which he had fallen so short that he owed the Depart
ment some 4-p million rials. The "discovery" is some
what surprising as presumably the Xh^rbar had been handling
the transaction ( and paying advances) to Fathullah Khan
since his renewed contract was signed in the autumn of
1943. If it re.lly is a discovery 3 then little credit
io reflected on the accounts side of the Kharbar Department.
Fathullah Ivbun has been tryi-a, to draw up
accounts with the Kharbar Department for the last 6 months
and to have some of the considerable transport charges
owin^ to him set off uyainot the Kh^rbar dues. His efforts
were further complicated by his haviny been allowed by
Bushire Ivharbar in e 3 .rly 1544 a set off of 1,CQQ tons for
seed wheat in the contract 3 which amount was, however,
arbitrarily curtailed to 500 tons by the Tehran authorities y
some months later when he had already distributed and
sown the 1,900 tons fc
Fathullah was able to produce 2,000 tons of
prain in a famine year and saved Bushire from starvation
thereby, a contingency viewed with equanimity and from a
purely departmental view by the B..iraz authorities, who
however had previously seen nothing out of the way in
rant inn co..tracts for areas which did not exist to men
who had no prain. That he ...ade some md^iey on the deal is
not so surprising as the fact that whereas he produced
75/o of his contract amount a prominent Shirazi contractor,
Hislnmat al Manalik, onl}^ produced from the we 11-irrigated
Shahbankareh area of Bushire a « per cent of a promised
2,000 tons, without the penal clauses of his con-tract
beiny invoked ay ainst him. Kharbar officials in Bushire
admit that owiny to crop failure last year Fathuil^h has
fulfilled part of his engagements by buyiny black market
w-.eat at a much hal, her price than that paid to him by
Government. There is some yround for the belief that
part of the opposition engineered ayainst him is to be
laid at the feet of some Xharb..r officials who are
anxious for Fathullah to buy them off.
33. It is reported by Consular Asent, Linyah,
that 43 tons of the Government of Indi« seed wheat were
received in rood time from Bandar Abbas and were distributed
by the end of November. Farmers were pleased with
the quality of the seed.