Page 194 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (IV)_Neat

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their sons from school before they arc fully educated. The difficulty in finding
sufficient suitable teachers is the chief obstacle against opening more schools ;
it is not the policy of the Government to flood the schools with foreign teachers as
is done in some neighbouring states but it takes time to train local teachers. More
boys were sent to the American University of Beirut for advanced education and
two, who had been there for some time, obtained their B.A. degrees, they were
the first Bahrain boys to achieve this distinction.
Medical and Public Health services were extended ; a T.B. Sanatorium
and an Isolation Hospital for women were opened during the year and there was
an increase in anti-malaria work; a Tifa spraying machine was used very effec­
tively in streets and gardens for killing flies and mosquitoes and several more of
these machines were ordered.

Many new shops and houses were built by private enterprise in and on the
outskirts of Manamah and most of the building plots in the residential area north
of the Godhabia Palace were sold by the Government. The most conspicuous
Government buildings were the large three storied block of nine European style
flats at the western end of the Manamah Sea Road and the Boys’ School Hostel
on Belgrave Road which is collegiate in style, with a central quadrangle, a school
hall, a mosque, and accommodation for 100 boarders, six resident masters and a
warden.
The Manamah Town Water Supply functioned throughout the year.
During the summer it was thought at one time that the amount of water was
insufficient to supply the demand but when the new cooling system of the Electric
Department came into action and certain improvements were made elsewhere it
was evident that the supply of water was adequate. During the year the cost of
electricity was reduced to about half what it used to be, this and the cheaper price
of water, which in most cases was previously distributed by water carriers, has
lowered the price of living in Manamah.

At the beginning of the year there was a shortage of labour in Bahrain,
partly because so many of Bahrain Arabs were working abroad. Their places
were filled however by men from Oman and the Trucial Coast who came to Bahrain
to find work. Measures which were taken by the Government of Saudi Arabia
reduced the number of visitors to Bahrain from that country and the absence of
large numbers of American day visitors from Dhaharan affected adversely the
trade in luxury goods, though not to such an extent as was expected. Bahrain
subjects were exempted from the new fees which were imposed by the
Saudi-Arabian Government and continued to travel and to trade between Bahrain
and the mainland.

Conditions in Bahrain, such as the low customs duty, stable government
and absence of income-tax appear to attract foreign interests to make Bahrain
their headquarters in the Gulf. The state is not averse to developments of this
nature provided that the activities of foreign business concerns do not deflect
trade from the people of the country. It is an unfortunate fact that today the
largest proportion of the trade of the country is in the hands of people who arc not

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