Page 273 - PERSIAN 9 1941_1947

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include any grain and are insufficient in quantity.
Those bedouin other than the happy owners of flocks
are entirely without means of subsistence other than
charity, Many are now encamped round the town and
live by begging from house to house, an additional

burden on the town’s food supplies. Lt-Col. H.R.P.
Dickson, C.I.E • > Acting General Superintendent of
the Kuwait Oil Company, who is in very close touoh

with the Bedouin of Kuwait and East Saudi Arabia,is
convinced that the mortality rate among children and
the aged from Tuberculosis and Phthisis, aggravated
by under-nourishment, is about 60$.

VI. FOREIGN INTERESTS
(a) Saudi Arabia. Relations with the Saudi Kingdom
have remained friendly. In March some concern was
caused by a report, subsequently confirmed as a
"canard", that King Ibn Saud had forbidden the export

from his territory of desert products to Kuwait,
(b) Iraq. The official attitude of Kuwait to Iraq is
perhaps best described as one of profound distrust.

It seems nevertheless to be tempered by the self-
knowledge that, given the opportunity, Kuwaitis are
capable of many of the iniquities attributed to Iraqis.

VII. DATE GARDENS

The situation was as follows at the end of the year:-
(a) Bashlyah. This case was heard in Basra and the
verdict was given in favour of the defendants. An
appeal has been lodged in Baghdad by His Highness’

advocate and the date of hearing is fixed for 18th
January 1944. There seems little hope that the case