Page 737 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

1932

Thursday [23 June]

Busy morning, saw a lot of people. I expected Skinner to call with his surveyor but he didnt come. Abdulla Kozaibi came in
to see me with Zayani after the Meglis Tajara and Abdulla talked most freely and interestingly about Ibn Saoud. He and the
Kozaibis have had a row with him and they are on bad terms. The King owes them 17 lacs of rupees, for two years they have
not had any repayment from him and when he asked them to buy him some more rice they refused. Abdel Aziz is now with
the King trying to get some money out of him but without success, he talked also about St John Philby and told me that the
King also owes a large sum of money to him, he said it was all pretence his turning a Mohamedan and he only did it in order to
be able to trade more freely in the country. Ibn Saoud has appointed an Italian Financial Adviser at Jhedda which annoys his
people a great deal. It was all very interesting. In the afternoon I took Luard across to Hedd to see what a good landing ground
there might be there for the Imperial Airways, then we came back to Muharraq and saw Shaikh Abdulla who was down at the
Customs, just as I was going the Amir said they had a report about a house where arak was being made so we raided it and
found quite a lot, then came back to Manama and went in to see D.G. and then Russell. Dined at the Agency, D.G. and Russell
were there. Sat on the veranda afterwards and listened to the gramaphone. It was very hot all day and extremly damp indeed,
a real bad Bahrain day. However it has been very cool up till now on the whole so at all events we shall have a short summer.

Friday June 24th

Stayed late in bed, Skinner came round before breakfast and stayed some time, he had a long talk to Luard about the rumour
that the A.P.O.C. were buying up the Bahrain Oil Coy. Luard seemed very worried at such an idea having got round and said
there was not a word of truth in it but he put it down to Yusuf Kanoo. Skinner said he thought it was Haji Williamson, who is
here now. While they were talking the Shaikh came in, a tiresome trick on a Friday, but he had got a letter from Abdulla bin
Jeloui about the rice business and so he was very fussed about it. He gave it me to show to Prior and arranged to come in
tomorrow morning to discuss the matter again. When I introduced Luard to him he asked what he was doing and when he
heard that I was arranging for oil for Imperial Airways he said he hoped soon they would be running on Bahrain oil, which was
perhaps hardly tactful. Tennis at the Agency, Mrs Pennings came round to say good bye to people in a car, she looked very
well but is still very lame and walks on crutches. Quite good tennis. Hottish day and very damp.

Saturday [25 June]

A dreadfully busy day. The Shaikh came in with Abdulla in the morning before I had had breakfast and we went over to the
Agency taking Sulman and had a long conference and settled to allow Ibn Saoud to have 8000 bags of rice free of customs as
"assistance" to him, which of course will make him very angry as he wont like the idea of being "assisted" by Bahrain and he
claims that he has the right to get the stuff through free of all customs. Then the Shaikh came back here and wrote a few letters
which always takes him a very long time and finally he went and I had breakfast. Didnt go into the court but spent all the rest
of the day writing a long letter which was supposed to be from the Shaikh himself to the P.R. saying that he proposed in future
to take customs on all direct transhipments cargo and was going to cancel a certain letter of Sh Isa who agreed not to charge
customs on this. As the letter will go to the Govt of India and also to the Home Government I had to be very careful about it.
Went down to the office at once after lunch and got on with it, in English and Arabic. It is really a good letter and just the style
the Shaikh writes himself. Then we went along to the opening of the New Bank. It was a very badly arranged party and not at
all well done. Ham seemed to be hiding all the time and hardly appeared. It took a long time. People just sat about in the