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hiring of a Judicial Adviser, the hiring of an Assistant to the Commandant of the

Police, the Ruler’s promise of developing the constitution governing the municipal

councils, the hiring of a British doctor as an Assistant to the State’s Medical Officer,

the installation of new electricity plants, and the construction of new schools for

boys and girls. The letter took the HEC to task for its stubbornness in not

cooperating with the Administration and it further warned the Party that ‘you must

not try to run before you can walk’. It stated, additionally, its refusal to

acknowledge the HEC, since there were no constitutional means that legitimised it.

The letter also highlighted the channels of communication that were available to

them but which they had boycotted. The latter was in reference to February’s

municipal elections. 290 The Adviser did not hide in his diary his pleasure at the

British response to the HEC as he considered it ‘a smack in the eye to them by

others’. 291

The reply was personally read out and handed to Al-Bakir by Gault.

Al-Bakir’s initial verbal response to the letter ‘reiterated that his Committee was not

prepared in any circumstances to co-operate with the Bahraini Government since

they had lost faith in it’. He also attacked Belgrave, suspecting that he had ‘too much

influence with the Ruler’. 292

The HEC responded to the British reply in a letter dated 29 March, in which

the Party emphasised the topic of the centralisation of power by the British Adviser.

In addition they criticised the steps taken by the Government towards reform as

290 TNA, FO 371/114586, Letter via Agency as to British policy, 17 March 1955.
291 Sir Charles Dalrymple Belgrave’s Personal Diaries, 19 March 1955.
292 TNA, FO 371/114586, Burrows to Eden on the HEC’s Response to British Policies, 22 March 1955.

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