Page 393 - Records of Bahrain (7) (i)_Neat

Annual review, I960 379
I
CONFIDENTIAL

mm* «.am
jflMUiafiQ

miMAjRY
It was an uneventful year in conservative
Bahrain; the Ruler's health was good, he tightened
hia decidedly negative control of affairs, and
strengthened the position of his three sons, with

the probable intention of making them a triumvirate
capable of resisting hia cousin the Chief of Police
and 1113 brother the President of the Courts.
(Paras. 1-3)
Some progress in judicial reform was achieved,
owing to the Ruler's liopca of obtaining, like Kuwait,
a transfer of jurisdiction. Several British officials
left, and discord and corruption increased in the
administration. (Paras. 4-6),
Subversive pamphlets harped on the usual
Masserite themes, but discontent with the regime lacked
a loader and was therefore hard to estimate. Despite
the rejection of an appeal for habeas .corpus by the
Privy Council,’ Her Majesty's Government intimated
that they no longer wished to retain in British
custody the three prisoners sent to St. Helena in
!
December 1956. (Paras. 7-8).
The Ruler's principal preoccupations were
ftubarah, and the Qatar sea-bed boundary; he pressed
BAFCO to drill on Fasht-ul-Jarim, u shoal north of

Bahrain; disappointed at the decrease in oil prices
und the company's porciotonce in charging the now
drilling coata in their accounts, he engaged some
British lawyors to advise him how to obtain hia full
rights from the company; but ho mado no progress
towards disposing of the areu relinquished by BAPCO,
/largely ............
CONFIDENTIAL;