'Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf. Vol I. Historical. Part II. J G Lorimer. 1915' [‎2563] (1080/1262)

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2563
In 1895, when an attack on Bahrain by Arabs of the mainland was
threatened^ there were not a hundred rifles in the principality, and
the weakness of his position was forcibly brought home to the ruler of
the islands. On the 21st of January 1896 the Shaikh issued an ambigu
ous proclamation, forbidding the importation of firearms into Bahrain
under penalty of a fine (or special customs duty) equal to one-fourth the
value of the arms ; but, immediately afterwards, he granted a special ex
emption or monopoly in favour of his Wazir Minister. 'Abdur Hahman-bin-
'Abdul Wahhab. This concession was for the life of the grantee and
W included a special stipulation that arms should not be sold to inhabit-
P ants of Bahrain, Qatar, or the Arab coast except the coast of ' Oman; but
iit 1 its principal provision was one designed to secure a supply of arms to
the Shaikh, by which the concessionaire undertook to pay an annual
royalty of 30 Martini rifles and 6,000 cartridges in addition to customs
duty in kind at the rate of three rifles in every hundred and 200
cartridges per rifle.
The Wazir Minister. without delay transferred his concession to Agha Muham
mad Rahim, a respectable Arab merchant who was also political repre
sentative of the British Government in the islands ; and he in his turn,
on certain conditions as to division of profits, passed it on to the now
entirely Parsi firm of Fracis, Times & Co., a house of doubtful
reputation, whose profits from the Gulf arms trade were supposed to
have amounted by the middle of 1897 to not less than £40,000.
This firm, as already mentioned, had established their first agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. in
the Gulf at Bushehr in 1887, and one of the partners took up his residence
at that place in 1891; in 1895 they opened an agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. under Agha Mu
hammad Rahim in Bahrain, and in 1896 another under Damodar Dhar-
amsi at Masqat. In July 1896, after the creation of the Bahrain mono
poly, Messrs. Fracis, Times & Co. sought to obtain a letter of recom
mendation from the British Resident at Bushehr to the Shaikh of
Bahrain ; bui - as they failed to give an assurance^ that they would refrain
from the traffic in arms, the British Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. withheld its good offices.
Want of official countenance, however, did not deter the firm from
establishing a business ; and, under the concession obtained by them, the
jaiiuarms trade at Bahrain increased with phenomenal rapidity, the value of the
jessionof' imports rising trom Rs. x4,850 m 1894-95 and Rs. 95,400 in 1S95-
Ibeen^ 96 to Rs. 1,42,880 in 1896-97 and Rs. 4,67,790 in _ 1897-98.
tigWi 1 On several occasions shipments were made from Bahrain to Bushehr and
even to Masqat ; but the majority of the arms disposed, of at Bahrain
were sold to visitors from Bandar ' Abbas, Lingeh, Tahiri, Kangun,
Bushehr and Muhammareh on the Persian side of the Gulf, to purchasers
from Kuwait, Najd, and ' Oman on the Arabian side, and even, m defi
ance of the terms of the concession, to natives of Bahrain and Qatar.
Til# A p r ii X897, the Shaikh became alarmed at the growth of the trade
I and the Wazir Minister. intimated to Agha Muhammad Rahim that operations
must be discontinued for four months. A little later a rupture occurred
between Agha Muhammad Eahim and Messrs. Fraeis, Times & Co. over
J the division of profits ; and in January 1898 the Shaikh, either m co n-
# « neotion with this dispute or because the concession was being mtnnged
ibetrfl by the sale of arms in Bahrain, attached the whole stock of the firm,
>rso^ amounting' to 3,667 rifles and 637,500 cartridges. His action
171 A
Monopoly of
the arms
trade estab
lished in
Bahrain,
1896.
Large
business
established by
Fracis, Times
& Co.^ 1895-
98.
Confiscation
of their stock
by the Shaikh,
1898.