File 1508/1905 Pt 1 'Bahrain: situation; disurbances (1904-1905); Sheikh Ali's surrender; Question of Administration Reforms (Customs etc)' [‎107v] (219/531)

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The income and expenditure are made closely to correspond.
In bad years, retrenchments can undoubtedly be made by the cutting down
of allowances and presents, and the fact that the Sheikh has received some two
lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees of Rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. in advances from the Customs-farmers bears no more heavily
on him while his power to periodically sell the farm is uncontrolled than does the
British National Debt on ourselves.
The total of the Chief’s private debts is insignificant—some Rs. £5,000.
The state of affairs here, therefore, differs very greatly from that of Maskat.
12. With regard to the origin of the Customs reformation proposal, I only
write from memory, as the records of this office commence from 1900, but if I
am not mistaken, the proposal was made on the Chiefs affirming, in his charact
eristic insincere manner, that he could not afford some trifling expenditure—it
w r as probably the enhancement of Sheikh Ali bin Ahmed’s allowance. The
Maskat Customs question at that time was occupying much of Colonel Meade’s
attention, and the real position at Bahrein not being properly known, it was
natural for him to suggest that the same reform should be introduced into
Bahrein as into Maskat,
13. I am most anxious that Government should not thi ik that I have
failed to realize the advantages that will accrue to the Chief of Bahrein by the
introduction of the new system, and you are aware, I think that I have conti
nuously done my best to make Sheikh Isa see the matter in the same light,
At the same time with my increasing knowledge of affairs here I have lately
been coming round to the opinion that there are two other reforms of immeasu-
reably greater importance, which should be first introduced, and that while the
Customs question is by no means to be forgotten it may conveniently for a little
time be allowed to subside into the back ground.
14. The two abuses, which I wish to see reformed, are (i) the cruelties
inflicted upon the Sheikh's own subjects by the al-Khalifa family, the Magisterial
and Revenue Officials and the Kazis, and (it) the objectionable welcome which is
extended every summer to hordes of Bedouin W'ho, coming from Hasa as well as
from Katar, are fed at the Sheikh’s expense and in addition are permitted to
commit a variety of crimes and to harass the townspeople of Manama wathout
the slightest check.
15. The protection from foreign States which the Chief receives from us is
* neither more nor less, it seems to me, than that which the Government of India
extend to the Native States in India. In the latter all persons have the
privilege of appealing to the local Political Officer against acts of oppression,
and I submit that the same right should exist here. My predecessor regulated
his conduct more on the pattern of a consular officer in Persia than of an Indian
Political Officer, and I have consequently hitherto refused to entertain the com
plaints of Bahrein subjects, though such are constantly being presented to me.
16. The most common forms of oppression are the selling, over and over
again, the same plots of ground by different servants of the Chief in the latter’s
name, the arbitrary resumption of date-gardens on the deaths of the original
cultivators, the flagrant and almost continual acts of injustice committed by the
Kazis in succession cases, and the exercise of “ Sukhra ” which the Chief has
himself formally repudiated in a letter to me.
1 7. Whilst these acts of tyranny are constantly recurring it seems incongruous
that we should be endeavouring to add a lakh One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees and a half annually to the Sheikh’s
income without any conditions as to the expenditure of the money, and I feel
that a little unfettered supervision and an occasional investigation into alleged
irregularities will have such an effect on the Chief’s revenue that, taken into
consideration with the present reduction of his income for the next 2^ years of
a lakh One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees per annum—the advance money which the Customs Farmers are no longer
paying for renewals of the farm —he will soon find himself against his will
compelled to turn to Government for pecuniary assistance “-a step which he has
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