'File 8/16 Bahrain Intelligence Summary' [‎62r] (123/174)

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(ii) Gray Ma cke nzie
Messrs. Gray 9 Mackenzie & Co . 9 Ltd. (see paragraph
136) are acquiring a site near the Customs Jetty at Doha and
are preparing to build there.
(iii) Cable arr Wire less Ltd .
The question of starting public telegraph facilities
in Qatar 9 including radio telephone communication with the
United Kingdom and the United States of America 9 is under con
sideration.
(iv) Bri tish Bank of Iran and the Mi ddle Las t
The bank has received permission to visit Qatar
with a view to studying local banking possibilities.
(v) Political A g ency In Doha.
The Ruler has offered to provide a piece of land
for the new Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. building in Doha and the various alterna
tive sites are under examination.
(vi) Tnt erna 1 Organisation .
The progress of the Ruler towards becoming an
enlightened monarch is extremely slow. His personal expen
diture is on a fairly generous scale but he shows little en
thusiasm for promoting the extremely feeble growth of his new
police force and n,one at all for organising his State. He
is unable and unwilling to distinguish between personal and
State income. And when asked to draw up a tentative budge",
ended by declining to consider the matter. In this he was
doubtless prompted by his father who is showing signs of^
surprising rejuvenation and whose idea ol State finance is
that all receipts she ild go direct to the privy purse and
stay there.
In order to ease the monetary demands of the
Shaikh's relations it is proposed to find them., where pos
sible, suitable employment in government service. This
project however has made little headway. It has been es
timated that two-thirds to three-quarters of the Customs
dues collected find their way at the pocket of the Director
of Customs. A proposal that motor vehicles^should be li
censed by the police was accepted by the Shaikh but the re-
&ultafitincome is likely to go in the Shaikh's pocket rather
than in helping to pay for the police force as was intended.
The delay in appointing an Adviser is to some
extent responsible for the failure to make headway in Qatar.
But a much greater obstacle is Shaikh Ali's outlook m whj-ch
he is encouraged by his father, by local influences^such as the
Darwish family and tkx by the example of Saudi Arabia,
oil royalties in Qatar are not to be frittered away but a P“
plied to the public good a very firm line will' sooner or iat^r
have to be taken with Shaikh Ali. The appointment of an
Adviser remains the first essential step.
Meanwhile there are hopes of a reconciliation
between Shaikh Sa’ud bin Abdur Rahman of Wakra and the Rule^
who
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