Page 47 - 5 Persian Trade rep BUSHIRE I_Neat

No. -3951. Annual Series.

Reference to previous Report, Annual Seines No. 3581.

Report on the Trade and Commerce of Du shire for the
Year 1906-07
By Mr. Vice-Consul H. G. Chick.

The period under review is the Persian year, which is reckoned General
from March 21, 1906, to March 21, 1907, additional statistics remark*,
being appended for the three months intervening between the end
of the year 1905 and Noruz, the Persian New Year’s Day.
For the most part local trade was free from the disturbances
which had so seriously interfered with it in 1905. In the autumn
there was a slight recrudescence of trouble with the customs
authorities, which led to a strike of the lightermen and boatmen
of the port and neighbourhood, who to ensure its effectiveness
deposited their rudders in a mosque. With the inner anchorage
situate 3 miles from the quay the consequent paralysis of operations
of working cargoes will be understood.
The inefficiency of the landing arrangements has been the
subject of many complaints, but the lack of lighters, the refusal
of the lightermen to work, and their dilatorincss in unloading,
rendered difficult any attempts at amelioration. Towards the end
of the year the customs administration formulated certain proposals,
including the separation of the operations of (1) landing mer­
chandise, and (2) passing it through the customs and delivering it
to the consignees, making the shipping companies responsible for
the first and themselves for the second. The matter is still under
discussion among the British merchants, but it is doubtful, on
account of the high scale of charges proposed for the manipula­
tion of cargo inside, whether the proposals will ultimately prove
acceptable.
There is still too harsh an interpretation put upon certain
clauses of the customs regulations which has occasionally given rise
to ill-feeling. The label impost on each tin of kerosene imported,
amounting to more than 1 per cent, of the value of the oil, is an
example in point.
The solution of the very complex problem of the landing of
merchandise lies undoubtedly in the improvement of the wharf
ana the harbour. Were adequate funds forthcoming there appears-
(230) k 2