'ملف رقم (22/16 II (A66 جوادر' [ظ‎‎١‎١‎٣] (٣٨٠/٢٣٣)

^ Dated, Slat Dhil Haj 1344 corresponding to 8nd July 1926.
^^f-The8ultan i3 »Taimur "bin jfaisal,
We the undersigned Gwadur Fishermen,respectfully beg to state that
the fish merchants who are "buying fish from us have held a meeting
15 days ago and have all agreed and combined to reduce the prices
of fish. The Icind of fish that is actually worth Rs.200/-.will be
bought at Rs.lOO/~and mm . that was sold at R3,100/«its price is
fixed at Rs.50/- only* This shows that they have reduced the prices
^to half and even also less than half. The liice of this has not
happened before. It will put us to great loss and trouble and we
shall not be able to meet our daily expenses,They have all taJcen
oath and have signed a document to the effect that none of them
is to increase the prices heyond those that tney have fixed and he
irho increases the prices one rupee more shall he liable to pay
R8 ,275/-fine,Most of the fishing "boats belong to us and only few
of us are indebted in a small amount to the iutiae.
They have also agreed that if a fisherman sells M5 catch of
fish to a small outsider the fish will not be bought by any of
them,If this continues we shall be thei-r slaves without any rea-
• son, we are really troubled too much by the Lutias fish merchants.
The income of Gwadur Customs is mostly collected from us and w
pay 10% from the fish to Customs and merchants never pay anything
when shipping their fish and formerly merchants used to bring
fish from foreign ports to Gwadur hut now they have appointed
agents at these foreign ports and are gettingJfioh paciced and serife
to Gwadur as transhipment cargo and thus to evade paying duty to
Gwadur,
The merchants never allow us to sell our fish to anybody else and
so we are tied up by them and cannot move and have become as in- \
-debted to them but in fact most of us are free from dehts.we pray
you to rid us from them and if they have any claim against any of
us,let them appear "before you and we are all your humble servants.
Moreover they pay us the price of the fish they purchase from
us after a month or two and if we require to transfer our account
they never agree but this was formerly done.
Signed by^ all fishermen of Gwadur,