"ملف 39/23 II مفاوضات للتنقيب عن النفط في قاع البحر في البحرين والساحل المتصالح وقطر" [و‎‎٥‎٣] (١٣٨/١٠٥)

Confidential,
27/2/49.
Political Agency,
Doha,
15th October 1949.
Your letter C/Q 74 of 5th October.
• j ■ ibsye discussed the question of peerlinp
^ ersi 2 n iftf.ters with a number of pesrl merchents,
116 v srifi ? h ’ S£iih and the Sheikh, eni
+ h}+ 1 i'®' 3 + f 16 us net contradictory replies. Some say
ttict m the past metan boats have worked in Persian
waters just as Persian, Ealiraini, Kuwaiti or any
other boats have worked in Qatari waters if there
were reports of good pearling there, and that there
thf frefnasnnry in this respect. Salih and
the oheikh say ttiat Qataris never fished in Persian
voters, and produce a wealth of corroborative detail
about technical differences in method, the relative
merits of the banks etc.
, ,. 1 All x ar 1 e however agreed that in recent year;
no Qatari boats have crossed to the Persian side, as
ttie state of the industry has not enabled it to sup
port such ventures, fortunately catches have been
fairly good from the easily-worked local banks, and
the tew small craft^involved have gone no furtner.
hxs year the Qatari fleet is mainly concentrated a
lew miles ofi Umm Sa id, and the few r who have gone
further afield are still within the Halool-Das line
B.
vo i
: ’n .'T
PT.
19 OC T ^
H.G. Jskins Esq.,
hi. M. Political "Agent,
Bahrain.