Page 71 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

the meantime the Sunni and Shia Kadhis, who usually displayed only
frigid politeness towards each other, joined forces in organizing oppo­
sition. After the usual lobbying and discussions I managed to win over
most of the leading Sunni laymen. We obtained from Baghdad the rules
of a similar institution which existed in Iraq, and a committee of Sunnis
and Sliias was appointed by the Shaikh, with clerical staff and an office in
the Law .Courts, under the name of the ‘Minors’ Estates Department’.
When referring to it in English I was constantly asked what sort of mines
existed in Bahrain!
At first it was not made compulsory that all estates should be ad­
ministered by the department, but if any minor or widow or orphan, or
their representatives, applied for administration then the committee came
into action. In the first year forty-three small estates were dealt with
whose value was about ^4000, but by 1956 the department was handling
property and investments to the value of about half a million pounds
sterling. The department which had started from small beginnings had
become an important branch of the Government and was one of the few
organizations which were managed successfully by a joint committee of
Sunnis and Sliias who work together in harmony. The method of the
Arab girls, 1926
department was to invest money in land or to put it out in loans, secured
with Mrs Nair on her left and two
Girls at school, today. Lady Bclgrave by mortgages on immovable property or on gold. As the interest which
school teachers was charged was considerably lower than the bazaar rates, which were
Walter Sanders-courtesy *Life' Magazine. Q 1952 Time Inc. never less than 20 per cent, there was no difficulty in finding sound
borrowers. The property owned by minors was well looked after so that
when the minors came of age, having drawn suitable allowances during
their minority, they received their inheritance intact and worth a great
deal more than it had been when it was inherited. So popular was this
department that several people who could not possibly be described as
widows or orphans or minors asked that it should take charge of their
estates, but this was not the ‘object of the exercise’ so their requests were
politely refused.
The war. had a bad and lasting effect on public morality. The Arab felt
that it was not his war and he had no strong feelings of patriotism. Every
Arab is at heart an opportunist and the war provided a Heaven-sent
chance for many people to make money by legal or illegal means or
by a combination of both. Rents and land prices soared, fortunes were
made from smuggling gold to India and from deals in motor-cars which
. were exported to other countries, and pilfering and stealing on a large scale
became a serious matter. People seemed to think, until they appeared in
court, that to steal from military stores or from the Government or from

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