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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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