Page 296 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

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1927

Monday 19th [September]

Alban & I settled to have a new election of the Biladya - rather an unconstitutional proceeding but we have a good excuse in
the fact that the best election, when I was at Lahore, was all wrong & no supervised voting. Barrett just didnt bother about it.
Went to tennis at the Mission. Ali b Hussein came round in the evening. The election will cause a lot of excitement especially
as we are cutting down the numbers. I want to try & teach the people the idea of voting & elections. I think they would take to
it here as its a grand opportunity for intrigue & personal rows.

Tuesday [20 September]
Biladya meeting at Muharrak. Rather dull. Yesterday Yusuf Fakroo, a big merchant of Muharraq, was saucy to Alban during
a case. He is the leading man on the Muharrak Council. Alban complained to the Shaikh & got a letter written to Y.F. asking
him to resign from the Municipality & also from the Urfi Council. Y.F. is a smuggler of arms & ammunition. I think Sh
Abdulla is very pleased to get rid of him as he tries too much to take the lead. We went to Muharrak in the Agency sailing boat
which A has repaired, a nice boat. Went to the garden in afternoon.