Page 247 - UAE Truncal States
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Chapter Six

                cultured pearls, and several of the established importers of pearls,
                rather than trying to emphasise these differences, went along with
                the market trend and ceased to buy expensive pearls from Bombay.
                  The cultured pearls had become a threat not only on the distant
                markets of New York but at home too. In January 1948 the Ruler of
                Bahrain had a meeting with the leading pearl merchants, who urged
                him “to lake all measures possible, in conjunction with the Ruler of
                Saudi Arabia and other Rulers of I he Gulf States to forbid the entry
                of foreign pearls into the Gulf States”. The reason for this appeal was
                that Venezuelan and Red Sea pearls had been sent to Bahrain
                merchants for disposal. It was also feared that even cultured pearls
                might be brought into the Gulf.59
                  In the event the threat of an embargo on pearl imports to India
                lasted only one season, and in June 1948 it was announced: "The
                Government of India have staled that pearls may now be imported
                into India freely. It is understood however that import licences are
                still required."60 But the pearling industry of the ports of the Gulf had
                by that time already disintegrated almost beyond remedy, because
                most of the participants in the industry had dispersed, being unable
                to wait for all these years in the hope that the markets of the world
                might recover. Many divers had abandoned the seasonal diving and,
                if they were tribal people from the desert, concentrated on their other
                activities; or if they had come to these ports from across the Gulf they
                either drifted back home or found other jobs. Eventually there were
                the openings for ex-divers in the oil industry abroad and at long last
                even at home.61 Many of the erstwhile pearl merchants, if they were
                Banians, returned to their homes which their families had in any case
                never left. The Persian and Arab members of this group, many of
                whom had earlier participated in the import of consumer goods,
                disengaged from the trade in pearls and concentrated on the import
                and entrepot trade. The volume of this trade grew quite significantly
                from the early 1950s onwards, and, due to the start of oil company
                activity, the outlook was not as bleak after the Second World War as
                it would otherwise have been.
                  But nevertheless for those who had seen the very much better
                years of the 1920s. the lean years from 1930 onwards must have been
               extremely difficult. The most trying aspect of this period was
               probably that the relief from this depressed economic status did not
               come  simultaneously to all the one-time pearling communities of the
               Gulf ports, but that Bahrain, Kuwait, and neighbouring Qatar
               seemed for some time to be the only lucky countries.

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