Coll 30/9(2) 'Admin. Reports of the Persian Gulf - 1945 -' [‎172r] (343/1148)

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can be obtained when it is realized that no less than
Es«80|00 f 000 were spent by the Government on the purchase
of such essential foodstuffs as wheat, barley, flour, rice,
sugar, and dates. In addition to this sum a further outlay
was incurred by the Bahrain Government in the purchased
cotton
of one-third of certain standard types of Indiaivpiecegoods
for sale at a price five per cent above cost to the poorer
members of the general public. The greater part of the
expenditure incurred by the Bahrain Government was of course
recovered from sales to the public. The cereal ration was
maintained at twenty pounds a head a month throughout the year
but there were variations in the constituents from time to
time to accord with the variations in the supply of the dif
ferent xinds> of grain by the Middle r.ast Supply Council. Rice
disappeared almost entirely from the menu whereas prior to
1942 the population of these Islands were almost exclusively
rice eaters.
in
Owing to the failure of the winter rainr^the season
1943—44 in South Persia the quality of the meat obtained
from that country was of the lowest,and even then the quantity
was much less than the local demand with ^he result that there
occurred meat shortages in the late summer and early winter of
this year. Early in the year difficulties with the local
butchers who consistently refused to sell meat at controlled
prices resulted in the Bahrain Government themselves purchasing
a 1 imports and selling direct to the public through salaried
butchers in the meat market. In the last quarter of the year
the falling off in the quantity of imports necessitated a
system of slaughtering only on four days in the week being
introduced.
possibly not unlike many other countries excellent price
control and anti-hoarding regulations issued both by this
Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. and by the Bahrain Government to prevent profiteering
were to a large extent nullified by the apathy of the general
public tod a marked disinclination on their* part to inform