'BUILDINGS. No. 4/13 I Correspondence regarding Surgeon's quarters.' [‎166r] (333/510)

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5. A study-cura-oTfice has been included because uhe
Assistant Surgeon has a certain amount of office vvorK. to do, and
there is no room in the Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. office for him.
6. /r.ter-born sanitation has been provided and is
considered essential because of ohe difficulty of getting sweepers
here. Unlike India, there is no .sweeper caste in Arabia. Persians
are sometimes obtainable; but are extremely difficult to keep.
Fhe Hynes have had. six since they arrived in June, und are now
paying ri*.65/- a morith. /hen coolies A term used to describe labourers from a number of Asian countries, now considered derogatory. can earn rJ.4/- per diem and
their food carrying sand, or up to ns. 12/- as casual labourers
carrying goods from the Customs to merchants * warehouses, they are
unwilling to work as sweepers.
7. The water system may seem unduly elaborate; but the
price of fresh, water — two annas per gallon ielivert.d —
necessitates the use, in addition to it, of brackish well-water
for baths, and of sea-water for water-born sanitation because
the wells to not produce sufficient vr tor ^or both, fhis entails
three separate systems of pipes and tanks. tittering has been
provided to catch ell roof water and to conserve it in the
♦AbkmDar’.
8. Hue -louse will be built of coral stone, mud, gypsum, and
cement. The estimates of materiel have been prepared to show the
materials now reouired .from India in column 4 of the statement
end os ed.
9. In considerin'* these proposals T would ask you to bear
in mind that:
(1) In Kir ait, unlike India, there is no organized
recreational life for Eurooefins; there is no club;
no cinema; and none of the ordinary amenities of
411 Indian Station. 3uropeans stationed here,
therefore, turn more and more to domestic interests
for recreation, and in these circumstances good
housing is more than ordinarily necessary.
(ii) The distance from India ana the expense of travel
usually preclude the Assistant Surgeon from sending
}iis wife anJ family to the hills in one summer, and
u good house ia essential for any one spending tne
summer in Kuwait.
(iii) The Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. Surgeon will in fu&ure almost certainly
be an officer. Then the Kuwait Oil lompany restart
operations and get settled in, company personnel
will be housed in houses every bit as good as the
one now proposed for the Assistant Surgeon with the
addition that they will be air-conditioned
throughout at the lompeny’s expense. You will
appreciate that it is invidious that personnel of an
Oil lompany should be better paid and better housed
than officers of the Government of India, and it
will not be conducive to the mental health of the
Surgeon if he has to live and work under conditions
palpably worse than others less qualified, less
experienced, and better paid then himself — junior
European personnel, certjinly of tfca Bahrain Oil
Company, are engaged initially without any training
or experience. A man labouring under a sense of
injustice does not make a keen or efficient worker,
nor does one physically oppressed by living in
discomfort in such e difficult climate as that of
Kuwait,