Page 555 - PERSIAN 8 1931_1940_Neat

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2. Tho possibility of bringing drinking water for Busbire Town from tho
rivers Mund and Shahpur and also tho possibility of effectively damming these
rivers for irrigation purposes has been investigated by two engineers. It is
understood that both the engineers considered that the damming of the rivers
for irrigation purposes was practicable. One of them hopes to bo able to
obtain drinking water for tho town from Khaviz or from Halilah. He is
said to bo surveying tho country and sinking experimental borings at Halilah.
3. In spite of the removal of some of the tribal chiefs from their districts
to tho interior of tho country by the Iranian Military Authorities there were
still two or three gangs of malcontents at large in the mountains. These
gangs were responsible for a number of raids on villagos and caravans passing
from .one villago to another.

SECTION 7.
MANUMISSION.
During 1938, tho following numbers of slaves were manumitted :—
Bahrain Agency 11
Sharjah Agency 122
MubOat Agency 57
H. D. RUSHTON,
Secretary to the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf.

SECTION 8.

TRADE AND TRADE FACILITIES.
1. General Conditions.—During the year under review there has been no
improvement in the trade of Bushire. Apart from one or two merchants
who import a small quantity of general goods for sale in the locality most of
the merchants have been occupied solely in doing a forwarding business.
In fact, this forwarding business is now all that is keeping the port of Bushire
alive. All tho important merchants have migrated either to Shiraz or
Tohran, leaving only small establishments here to clear goods from tho
Customs.
Tho clearance of goods from the Customs, particularly for import, has
been very slow, owing to tho many restrictions imposed by the Exchange
Control Commission which apparently could not redeem bills from the bankers.
In January a new Government scheme came into force. Exporters were
required to account for only 50 per cent, of the sale proceeds of their goods to
the Control Committee and were allowed to import goods against the remain­
ing 50 per cent. Even that was of little assistance to Bushire trade, since the
stamplo Iranian products are in the hands of the monopolies and other types
of goods are in very small demand abroad.
In a further attempt to enable merchants to clear their goods from the
Customs the Government allowed third-class category goods freedom of
export and the sale proceeds of such goods were allowed to be paid against
goods already lying in Customs. This to some sm^ll extent helped local
dealers both to export and to import. Transport services during the year
did rather badly but were kept going by carrying monopoly goods such as
sugar and tea as well as Anglo-Iranian Oil Company products.
During the year the piccegoods monopoly as a private concern was
abolished because the monopoly agents were selling monopoly goods above
the fixed rate. Tho Government, therefore, took the business into its own
hands and a branch of the Government Monopoly in Piccegoods was opened
in Bushire during May. At first the very heavy local demand caused some
difficulty but permission was very wisely given to various shopkeepers to buy
a limited amount of piccegoods from tho Monopoly and retail thorn, provided
tho prices asked were those fixed by the Government. The dividend paid
by the old Piccegoods Monopoly was 30 per cent, and by the Sugar and Tea