Page 155 - Records of Bahrain (5) (i)_Neat

Agitation for reform, 1938 143

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bo progressive and dospise their illiterate parents who,

since the youths are earning quite good wages, hove lost
all influence over thorn. They are nationalistic, especially
since they see foreigners earning more money than they thenv-
selves do. They know that they are better educated than the
ruling family and are inclined therefor® to despise them.
They come mainly from Manamah and Muharraq, and most of them

work with the Oil Company, in Government offices and with
firms in Manamah.
(ii) Examples of Kuwait and Dubai
Recent happenings in Kuwait, invariably misinterpreted,
and to a leaser extent in Dubai, have suggeotod to certain
people in Bahrain that the time is ripe for the people to
take over control of the Government and particularly of
the treasury. The memory of the end off Shaikh 1 Isa's rule
lends support for the almost universal belief that the popular
movements in Kuwait and Dubai were encouraged and supported

by the British Government and that similar support will be
forthcoming for "reforms" in Bahrain. Extravagant descriptions
of sudden vast benefits to the public of Kuwait and Dubai
resulting from the transfer of control from the Shaikh to the
Council have been widely circulated and believed.
i
(iii) Economic
Unemployment has increased owing to a reduction in
the labour force employed by the Oil Company, Y/hile at the
same time the divers have fared badly owing to a poor pearl
season. This causes dullness in the local markets and shop­
keepers are by no means as prosperous as they were. The
centro of wealth has passed from the one time powerful merchants
to the A1 Khalifah family, bankrupt merchants are aggrieved
because they cannot obtain large loans from the Government,

and/-