Coll 30/219 'Affairs in Qatar' [‎29r] (58/71)

REPORT ON A VISIT TO QATAR - 25th to 27th KOV.EMBER , 1945
I left Sitra at 11.50 a.m. on the 25th November in the
Petroleum Concessions Limited launch " Giiazal” . After a
moving but otherwise uneventful journey we anchored off the
Petroleum Development (Qatar) Company wharf at Zekrit at ten
minutes to five. I went ashore and visited the Company’s
Settlement at Dukhan a ten minutes drive over a reasonably
good road.
2. On the 26th November I landed at 6.50 a.m. and was
met by Saleh bin Lana the general factotum and jackal of
the bin Thani Shaikhs who had arrived the night before with
one of Shaikh Abdullah bin Jassim al Thani’s Buick cars.
We left at 7 a.m. ana drove over a rough desert track through
some of the most dismal country in the world to Wajhbah
where the Shaikh of 5$atar is at present living. The fort,
it is nothing more, is about ten minutes drive from the old
man’s favourite fesidence of Riyan ana to the south of that
place.
3. I was met on arrival by Shaikh Hamad bin Abdullah the
second son, a man of portly figure and flabby countenance
with a dark beard well streaked with grey and a protruding
lower lip. He is the real ruler of the State in collabo
ration with the unworthy Saleh bin kana ana has completely
eclipsed his elder brother Ali. Ali is by the same mother
but is dark in colour and bedouin in appearance and endowed
with but one tenth of his father's and brother's low cuaming.
We entered a large hall anc after a short interval
the old Shaikh appeared walking with difficulty and the aid
of a stick. He is a pleasanter ana less repulsive edition
of his second son. He apologised for not meeting me at
the door. He has been ill y»ith some sort of eczema of the
feet and hands and is now being treated by an Indian doctor
from the Bahrain Mission.
4. I produced the Oil Company Suspension Agreement at
once ana had the Arabic read over to them and the English
compared. No objection being raised the Arabic version was
signed and I arranged to sen a over two more copies written
in English and Arabic for signature.
5. The Shaikhs then launched demands for an increase in
their sugar quota and complained of the mixture of wheat,
barley and dari they are being given this month. I told
them they were lucky to get anything to eat and as for their
sugar quota there could be no question of increasing it as
long as they connived at and actually took part in the smug
gling of sugar and rice from Qatar to Hasa, Kuwait and Persia.
I quoted facts and figures which surprised them c onsiderably.
They swore by Goa ana took many oaths that I had been mis
informed ana wilfully misled by Bahrain so I quoted a Kuwait
case for which they could scarcely blame Bahrain.
6. I then referred to slavery and read a statement made
by a boy who died in Bahrain in June, and the proceedings in
a Criminal Case tried in the Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. court in which the accused
had confessed and been sentenced to two years rigorous im
prisonment for slavery. The man was a Qatar subject. More
and greater oaths were forthcoming and the Shaikh pointed out
that one man's statement coula not be considered as proof.
1 replies that if the first case had been clearly proved he