Page 400 - Records of Bahrain (7) (ii)_Neat

790 Records oj Bahrain
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there aro a hundred or more) must file a Proof which hao
to he scrutinised and if necessary' disallowed ; there
were scores of debtors owing money to the bankrupts and
paying up with reluctance I finally there was the
complicated business pf fnvos tiding the debtors*

accounts* The feara whiph jrero.at one time expressed in
some quarters that those- b*pkr^(tye& would load to a
chain-reaction of further banfcw^^iss proyod .undless,
though it is known that somo moye^llente wave in a rather
V.
precarious position, TJiere hasvflfljNjv* goofl. doal of
overtrading based on unsound finance, and the influx
of cheap oriental merchandise has not helped,
Many of tho observation^ tySde in last year’s
Report have been confirmed by this year’s work. The

landlord-and-tonunt problem ia still acute. The RontB
#’
and Leases Regulation, 1952, has certainly improved the
position of the house tenant, and landlords huvo apparently

now grapped the fact that they cannot arbitrarily evict
their tonunt so long as ho pays the rent, and cannot
arbitrarily raise the rent. The Regulation is unusual in
that'it does not apply to all Bahrain, but only to "stone
houses" in Manama and Muharraq (Rafaa is noticeably excepted).

8hops and business premises are wholly excluded, and, as
the law stands at present, if a shop-lease has run out, the
Court cannot give the tenant anothor, although the hardship
of a long-established shopkeeper being turned but is obvious.

This difficult problem was first taokled in Britain in 1927#
when provision was made that a tenant of business premises
who had been long in possession and acquired "goodwill" was
entitled either to a new lease or compensation. So far
the only movo in Bahrain has been an ’Alan signed by the
Adviser late in 1954 whereby shop rents were "frozen".

Unfortunately it is notorious,tfc*^ shop landlords had
/already