"ملف رقم: ١٤/ ١٤ الاسم؛ بنك لمسقط (البنك الإمبراطوري في إيران والخليج الفارسي)" [و‎‎١‎٢‎٩] (٤٣٤/٢٥٧)

Record of Joint with Merohanf •
Thirty-two of the bi*?, e«t norohanta cane to t}vo meeting,
which waa hold In the Conaulate Clui • I aadreeaod the Hooting
to the effect that the opening of a Bank in ruecat did not
appear to me to be a buelneespropoaltion and thftt It certainly
would be a very non-pay ing one if It did not haw tlie whole-
haarted co-operation of all riex*chantA« I cont^ued that the
Bank had not sent me there because the amount of bxwilnoea
paaalng through Kuaacat had attracted tiiuir attention, but that
X had boon sent down to examine the poeaibllltiee of opening a
Branch at the repeated requaate of the i>rltlah Coneulato, MU; cat,
who coneidered that a Bank waa absolutely eaaentlal to enable
Muscat tnorciuuita to coripote with nerchanta In other Borelan
Gulf porta.
After aLain outlining the facilities which could bo rranted
by the Bank, X ew^iaalaed that owing to the expenao of bringing
notea from Karachi to Mu. cat by ao R , which la far in exceaa
of that of bringing notes to liahra n by air freight, exchan*
rates in Mivicat, would not compare favourably to tlioae quoted
in Bahrain.
I then invited the race ting to ask any questions and a/ter
answering those which were , ut to r o, I waited for* about an
hour to allow the iierchants to discuss tlio whole liatter ain>n r st
themselves*
Ha ji g I'acker quickly opened t)ie uiac\iss ion by stating
that a port which could pay for its imports by its exports
did not need a Bank and that the proaent xchanr;o Control
difficulties, which they were experiencing in India, would soon
be got over and that they then would bo able to carry on buai-
neas in the previous ^aarmer. as the remainder of the
discussion was nade in a mixture of ip able and Br^u, X can
wily narrate from what l r. Hajy>oot and Hr. Ay a—fci Klian, T.O.,
British Consulate, Muscat, inf ©mod no* They told ne that all
the merchants had got together and wore openly accuaing Mr .Haji
4 Backer of doing everything in his power to prevent a Bank
opening in bus cat as he was afraid of losing his influence over
the nerchants. 1'hey further stated that ruacot was the only
Gulf Port without a Bank, and which #tlll did business in an
out-of-date manner. They said that oven if the present control
difficulties were sun.ioiuitod, they still wanted a Bank so tiiat
they would not be in the hands of a foreign selling agonts and
so that their business transactions could be kept secret and
trade relations with other countries developed. I wsc Informed
that after the tueotlng closed and I liad loft tiio Club premises,
there was some bitter remarks isade about Haji a Banker and tills
is born/'out by the fact tliat Hr. Haji a iiackor presented
himself at the British consulate next morning and said that any
opinion expressed by hia at the r ooting was purely personal
and did not nomn that hie fir* wonlri not support the nank.
I was receiving so nany invitations from various merchants
to lunclieon and supper that It was not possible to accept any
without*offending others, but, in view of Haji a Backer's
influence X accepted his Invitation to tea the night before x
loft Muscat.
He seemed to be rather worried then that the Ifenk should
open as he was afraid of being victimised by tire other merchants
and kept reiterating that if a liank did open, he ~<rild be the
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