Page 279 - UAE Truncal States
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Chap I nr Seven

                    While they and a great number of other Arab merchants saw their
                 businesses decline or even collapse, the merchants of the town who
                 had long-standing trading connections in Persia and knew how to
                 avoid the Imperial Persian Customs restrictions had something to
                 fall back on. The opportunities for illicit trading with a black market
                 in Persia were probably even greater in the 1930s than before.20 The
                 goods which were in great demand and being smuggled into Persia
                 by boat as well as camel caravan from Iraq were sugar, tea, all types
                 of cloth, hides and even cement.27 An important side-effect of the
                 continued economic depression on the Persian side of the Gulf was
                 the mass emigration which became a severe problem by the 1930s.
                  Statistics kept by the police office at Bushire showed that during
                 the seven months from March to the end of October 1934, 6,000
                 inhabitants of Bushire and the surrounding district left their homes;
                 at least half of them went to Arab ports.28
                   The loading and unloading of dhows at Dubai and at most Trucial
                 Coast ports were concealed in creeks and could not be observed by
                 vessels at sea; and the shaikhs did not welcome frequent visits by
                 British naval officers to their ports. The Persian merchants were
                 accustomed to buying the smaller classes of old bum made in Kuwait,
                 and the fact that Persian-made jalibuts were not easily distinguished
                 from those built on the Arab coast contributed to the impression that
                 most of the smuggling was done on Arab vessels.29 This widespread
                 misconception was, however, gradually revised.30 But this does not
                 imply that none of the native merchants of Dubai had any involve­
                 ment in or trade benefits from the illicit re-export; merely that the
                 nature of the trade precluded them from playing any leading role in it.
                   The genuine discontent of the A1 Bu Falasah and the leading
                 members of the Arab community in Dubai during the later 1930s
                 made them hungrily and constantly seek ever more proof that
                 conditions, privileges and customs were in need of reform, and
                 pursue ideas and ideals which would support as well as sanction
                 their movement. Therefore the news that a similar movement in
                 Kuwait was successful in forcing the Ruler in July 1938 to give power
                 to an elected council provided the supporters of the reform movement
                 in Dubai with the necessary additional backbone and confidence to
                 pursue their cause.
                   Very many of the suggestions which the A1 Bu Falasah and their
                 supporters put forward would probably never have met with so
                 mu ch adamant opposition from the Ruler if there had not been such a
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