Page 29 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

Books’ were checked by a staff of special clerks. Sales of pearls had to be
money and the captain in his turn charged interest on the advances which
he made to his divers. The captain received onc-fifth of the total profits,
and the remainder was divided among the divers and pullers, divers
getting two shares to the pullers’ 011c share. If, however, the captain or
the merchant himself financed the venture no interest was charged, but
the man who put up the money was entitled to buy the pearls at 20 per
cent less than market price.
hi theory the system was a fair one, but so many abuses crept into it
that the divers became almost slaves. Enormous rates of interest were
charged on loans and advances, accounts were ‘cooked’, divers were made
to work, without pay, for the captains and merchants during the off
season. They could be transferred without their consent from one captain
to another or handed over to a shopkeeper in payment for a debt, when
the diver had to pay a proportion of his earnings to the shopkeeper every
season. They had no means of checking their accounts. Their only resort
was to a notoriously corrupt court of captains and pearl merchants who
were not sympathetic towards them, and when a diver died his debt
passed to his sons who, as soon as they were old enough, had to dive for
the captain to whom their father owed money.
The captains, too, had a hard time, often mortgaging their houses and
boats to the shore merchants, and after a bad season there were many
bankruptcies which involved the captain handing over his divers, his
dhow and his house to the moneylender on shore. Divers were utterly
improvident, happy-go-lucky and bom gamblers, every man dreaming
that some day his boat would find a ‘pearl of great price’ which would
make him a wealthy man, able to retire from the sea. Very occasionally
this did happen, but more often than- not the diver spent all his money
on riotous living and eventually went back to diving. Young men had no
objection to becoming divers, for there were few other paid occupations,
and they were attracted by the substantial loan which they got. They
always hoped to earn enough money in the season to enable them to live
for the rest of the year without having to work, but there was no retiring
age for a diver. When he became old and tired—and many of the best
divers were old men—he had to go on working because he was in debt.
The new diving law, which was introduced by the Shaikh, limited the.
rate of interest to a reasonable figure. The maximum amount of the
advances was laid down by the Government, whose policy was gradually
to decrease these loans; a regular but simple system of accounts was insti­
tuted and every diver was issued with a little book, like a passport, con­ commanded a body of armed watchmen, when the sound of a crowd
taining his account with his captain and other details. These ‘Divers’
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witnessed by three of the divers chosen by the crew, unpaid labour in the
offseason was prohibited, the old diving court was abolished, every diver
had the right to appear in the ordinary courts and when a diver died his
debt died with him.
The new rules met with strong opposition from the merchants and
captains, who saw themselves losing much of their grip on the divers.
They were opposed, too, by opponents of the new regime who were for
ever seeking opportunities to discredit the Government. The divers
regarded the changes with sullen indifference because they had been told
by their masters that they would not benefit from them. But the Govern­
ment was supported by the religious leaders, who disapproved of all
forms of usury, and by a group of progressive Arabs, some of them pearl
brokers and merchants.
Every year, from 1926 until 1932,-there was trouble at the beginning
of the season when the proclamation laying down the amount of the
advances was issued. Twice, unfortunately, I was unable to prevent the
Shaikh’s proclamation from being revoked and the amount of the
advances being increased as a concession to the divers who had demon­
strated against it. Having succeeded twice the divers and their supporters
thought that they could force the Government, by threats of violence and
disorder, to repeal the law, although its whole object was to improve
their conditions and protect their interests. One year the divers went on
strike and refused to man the boats. Another time they broke into the
store of an unpopular merchant in Muharraq and destroyed much of his
I property and once, on New Year’s Day, when the Political Agent was
holding his usual reception at the Agency for representatives of the
i different communities, listening to a long speech from a leading merchant,
eulogizing the happy, peaceful state of the country, a messenger rushed in
with the news that the divers were looting the Muharraq bazaar. The
party broke up hurriedly.
The crisis occurred in May 1932 at the time of the advances. The
amount which had been decided by the Government after consultation
with some of the merchants was lower than that of the previous year, but
< more than was being paid in other parts of the Gulf. There was dis­
content among the divers and several of them had been arrested for
trying to provoke disorder. On May 26th I was sitting in my office with
Shaikh Abdulla, the Shaikh’s brother, and the Amir of Muharraq, who
moving along the sea road at the end of the garden came through the
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