‘File 28/42 Persian Gulf War Trade Bureau Reports’ [‎66r] (131/194)

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? arsian .carpets % ,a.nd rugs (valued at Rials 713,669,95) 9 , Iranian
Carpet'-Co, ltd-..,, Teher.-.n, in their letter dated 26,7,1942, re
quest* the East India Carpet Co, Ltd,, Amritsar, to make a T # T.
remittance for the/amount as the regulation to import goods against
the export of carpets- Has' been, abolished and merchants have to
sell foreign exchange instead to the Government,
(b) Khorramshahr Customs,,officials, misappropriate articles?
The following is an extract from a letter dated 23.9,1942 from
M/s Rochiram &'S 6 ns, Ibadan, to M/s Rochifam & Sons, Hyderabad
(Sind)s-
"Goods are. being r isappropriated in the Customs office
at Khorramshahr. Even the Customs employees form a clique
and steal articles from the cases. This sort of complaint
is prevalent among merchants. In short, Government adminis
tration is carried on on the lines of Sheikh Hazal.”
/ (c) Persian rice in exchange for Soviet w heat - The follow-.
^ ing appeared in the Iraq Times dated 2.9,1942 T-
"A Teheran report says that arrangements are now being
negotiated between Russia and Iran under which the latter
will supply the Soviet with rice, receiving Russian
wheat in exchange 0 M ‘ -
- - , IMi * ; ,1 .
1, Transit trade through Iraq - M/s Frank Fehr & Co., Holland
House, Bury St. , London, E.C.3, asked M/s Gore & Co=, P.0.B.342,
Bombay, to make offers on the basis C. & £L Basrah, of all types
of Indian cotton yarn for shipment to Turkey,
2. Miscellaneous -
(a) Date, crop situation In I raq - A letter from the Hills
Brothers Eastern Co. Ltd, , Basrah,' to the Hills Brothers Eastern
Co. Inc-., New York City (intercepted on 1,10,1942) contained a
review of the Date Crop situation. This was stated to be poor.
An extremely small crop and high costs of living and cultivation
had crdated a bad.situation and unusually high demands from
Syria and Palestine had made this worse. The Monopolists had re-
^ quested the 5.Food Controller in England for an increase in prices,
-but this had been formally refused. A new committee of the Date
Association.had just been elected and some of its members were
going to Baghdad to see the Prime i inister on the price question.
The writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. 'stated that if the-British Government would not pay
the high prices claimed there seemed a .good ■•chance of Weir giv
ing up the concession as growers were determined not to deliver
at the proper concession prices. 1
(b) Matches from India to. Iraq; anxiety of .London merchant -
The following is an extract, from a letter: dated 3,9,1942 from
Trummer & Co. Succrs. Ltd. , 15, St. Helen’s Place, London E.Co3,-.:
to the Swedish Match Co, , Bombays- A
’’The comparatively large -country craft shipments by our
competitors (to Iraq?) have been and are causing us an
xiety. They have definitely stolen a march on us here
and thereby established themselves in certain markets,
which will be to our detriment if the Indian Government
restrict their future export licencing policy on a fixed
quota system. It will, greatly interest us to know if
individual firms of Indian-exporters- as distinct from