Page 245 - UAE Truncal States
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Chapter Six

                 chief reason for the slackness of the market was the lack of interest of
                  Europeans, who were mainly French buyers. They usually spent
                 about one million pounds sterling per season, but in 1930 they spent
                 only a few thousand pounds sterling in Bahrain.51
                   Hindu merchants were reported to be speculating in 1932 that
                  pearls had reached their lowest price, and they accepted pearls again
                 as security.52 But the trade remained depressed and in Bahrain pearls
                  fell behind gold, rice and cotton goods in order of importance as the
                 principal export or re-export commodity in the year 1933-4. In a
                 report to the Department of Overseas Trade in London by the
                 Residency in Bushire dated October 1934 it was stated that “for a
                  number of reasons this industry has fallen into a state of extreme
                 depression during recent years and no signs of improvement are as
                 yet visible. In the first place, economic conditions in Europe and
                 America have led to a decrease in the demand for pearls with a result
                 that continental buyers no longer find it worth their while to visit
                 Bahrain every season as they did in former years. Secondly the
                 introduction of Japanese cultured pearls has had an adverse effect on
                 the market for natural pearls, and, thirdly, the quality of the local
                 catch has deteriorated due perhaps to the fact that the pearling beds
                 have been overworked."53
                   This situation did not improve in the remaining years before the
                 beginning of the Second World War and became, of course, even
                 worse during the war. Using as a standard the selling season of
                 winter 1928/9, which was the last one in which prices continued to
                 rise over those of previous years, prices of pearls fell in 1943 to about
                 10 per cent of that value, and a 10-grain pearl which cost a dealer
                 about 4,000 M.T. Dollars in 1924 dropped to 400 M.T. Dollars after
                 1929.54 An added problem was that from 1944 onwards it became
                 particularly difficult to obtain the large quantities of rice which were
                 required as provisions for the pearling crews. It was therefore
                 expected at the beginning of the 1944 season that the diving would be
                 on a much-reduced scale and within a smaller radius than usual
                 because the boats had to return frequently to pick up supplies.55
                   Another threat to the pearling industry during the war years did
                 not, however, materialise. In order to avoid spending sterling on
                 purchases which were deemed inessential, the Government of India
                 was  asked by the Treasury in London to prohibit the purchase of
                 precious stones from any country outside the sterling area. During
                 the summer of 1943 some departments of the Government of India

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