"ملف ١٩/٢١٢ I (ج ٤١ (التجارة العابرة في البحرين" [و‎‎٥‎٤] (٥٧٦/١٣٢)

S. ^
occurred during my tour of duty here,excluding last year, (when
arms were shipped from India for the Nejd Government) sad the
steamer was delayed for 24 hours. Even last year they §id not
give overside delivery for consignmeats of less than lOOObags
owing to these very difficulties. The Government of India will
realize from this that the natter is not quite so simple as it
appears.
7. I wish to say that I had no knowledge of the letter written
by Colonel Dickson to His Majesty Kiiig Bin Saud stating that no
duty would be charged on goods transhipped direct at sea. The
war and lack of staff had reduced the igency office work to
chaos and in 1922 all confidential files of earlier date were
closed and new ones opened,and I regret to say that I have never
found time to read these old ones. On receiving the reference
from the Bushire Residency,however,I managed to trace the file
and have now read it with useful results. I was aware;that the
reduction of transit dues to had been forced on Shaikh Isa
in the teeth of the strongest opposition ; but it now appears
quite clear that our sole motive appears to have been to placate
Bin Saud at the expense of this unfortunate State. At one place
I find the Political Resident infoming the Shaikh that "in
accordance with international practice no charge should be
levied on goods in transit" while Shaikh Isa pathetically
replies "he is certain that there are also things in his favour
in international practice,if he only knew of them". That he is
not far wrong is disclosed by the example of Iraq where 1$> is
charged upon all goods at the present moment,
8. I have discovered one valuable fact from the Political-" -
Agent T s letter No:G/228 to the Residency dated the 3rd August
1920. He states "no cargo is ever at present transhipped from
steamers at sea and taken direct to the mainland. There is no
prospect of such a thing happening in the future as far as I
can see,seeing that the Landing Company,also a British India
Steam Navigation Company's concern,is interested in landing all