'File 19/165 III (C 24) Bahrain Reforms' [‎43v] (93/426)

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5. I have been a loyal and staunch friend of the British Government,
and my relations with the British Consuls were marked by feelings of mutual
friendliness and good will until about two years ago when under the regime of
Major Daly matters assumed an unpleasant complexion.
6. For some reason or other Major Daly conceived a serious dislike
for the Arab people and entertained feelings of personal ill-will and hostility
to-wards me, and under the name of introducing "reforms" alleged to be required
and ordered by the British Government, he inaugurated a regime of lawlessness
and violence. The "reforms" which my subjects did not want or demand
and which indeed they condemned took the form of forcing on me inadmissible
demands for concessions to foreign syndicates the discussions regarding which
culminating in my sudden and summary deposition against the will of
my people and without any cause but one, the extraordinary plea of old
age and consequent incapacity to manage the affairs of the State; It is with
regret I have to say that major Daly caused wholesale fining, imprisonments
and deportations of my innocent subjects without any charge, inquiry,
or trial; abolition of all law Courts except one; making the Consul the sole
centre of all legislative, Judicial, and executive authority; the replacement
of the Manama Police by armed foreigners; the wholesale oustincr of the
indigenous Municipal personnel and its replacement by foreigners; the forcible
seizure of the State Customs and the transfer of its revenues to an English
Bank regardless of the rights and feelings of the people; the installation against
the will of the Chieis of the Xaefas ot my son Hamad, a youth without anv
business or administrative capacity or experience who has been lent himself to
the influence of the Consul and is coerced by him which fact he admitted before
the peoples delegdtes, he is made to put his signature to orders forced upon him
by the Consulate, "which aie calculated to imperil my most valued pearl trade.
No wonder that such a regime exasperated the people and drove them almost
to desperation; the country is seething with discontent and irritation, and the
people are seriously contemplating the extreme step of whole-sale emigration as
the only escape from reign of tyrany, dishonour and indignity to which they
have been systematically subjected for some time past.
7. Though their complaints and grievances had till then remained
unheeded and unredressed by the British Authorities and their confidence in
British Justice and fairplay had been rudely shaken, my subjects, before
resorting to any extreme measure convened a congress of the aristocracy and
intelligentia of the land and which was attended by the Cheifs of the tribes,
Nobles, ulemas and Merchants etc. and at such meeting passed the following
resolutions: —