'File 8/16 Bahrain Intelligence Reports' [‎137r] (273/432)

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They were of Russian or German manufacture, all of them old.
The newest rifle they saw was a German Mauser made in 1917.
They also noticed a steady trickle of travellers
making their way North, sometimes in ones and twos, sometimes
a dozen or fifteen at a time. They were told that these were
men making their way to Abadan in search of work. Sometimes
crowded dhows would also be seen hugging the coast and making
their way North; but generally the weather made sea travel
impracticable.
The two things which made the deepest impression on
the airmen were (i) the extraordinarily friendly way in which
everyone, and especially the Customs Officer at Tahiri, treat
ed them, and (ii; the remarkable accuracy with which the Blen
heim dropped their bundles of food etc., one after another,
practically at their feet.
102. Defence.
Many thousands of tons of coral are being provided^
by local labour every month, partly for P.A.D. works at Awali
and partly for the soling of a large area of soft ground which
divides the Civil from the R.A.F. aerodrome at Muharraq. The
coral is cut from the sea shore when the tide is low, is load
ed into small boats and is dumped at the nearest convenient
pier or jetty. The progress of the works at Awali and Miharraq
is limited not by the supply of coral available, which is in
exhaustible, nor by shortage of labour, of which there is
plenty, but by the number of small boats available for use in
transporting the coral from sea to land. A 'trial order' has
now been received from Basrah for 10,000 tons of coral to be
delivered within a month. Acceptance of the order would give
much-needed local employment; but it is doubtful whether
there is a sufficient number of small boats available to enable
so large a requisition to be fulfilled without interfering
with the progress of local works. The question is being given
careful thought.
103. Economic .
(i) Food Supplies .
Reference para 87 (i) of Intelligence Summary No.10
of 1942 in which it was reported that the question of food
supplies in Bahrain was causing increasing anxiety, and that
the temporary shortage of flour was developing into a chronic
bread famine.
No wheat or flour was imported into Bahrain during
the period under review in spite of the fact that licences for
the export of flour from India had been granted to Bahrain
merchants. In fact, four successive weeks have passed without
a single bag of flour arriving at Bahrain. The position has
now become really serious. Every day crowds demonstrate out
side the Customs House; Indian employees of the Bahrain Pet
roleum Company are becoming disaffected and complain that, if
they are compelled to remain in Bahrain, at least provision
should be made to feed them; and the feelings of the local
populace are exacerbated beyond measure when, seeing bags
off-loaded from ships calling at Bahrain, they discover that
they are filled with pepper or chillis, cardamom or turmeric,
copra or nuts or ginger - with everything, in fact, except
the flour which is so desperately needed. The Shaikh of Bah
rain is pressing the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. hard to alter the basis
of price control in such a manner as to allow local merchants
double their present margin of profit, in order that they can
obtain by bribery at Karachi the facilities which are denied
to those who, for whatever reasons, are compelled^to follow
the path of rectitude. The Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. r s resistance to the
Shaikh's pressure is weakening, as he cannot refute the
/ proposition