Page 373 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (III)_Neat

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Financially the State was in a strong position and it was decided that the only course to take
was to cut out the merchants and for the State to become the general provider for its people. During
the remainder of the war year and to a considerable extent up to the present time, the Bahrain Govern­
ment became the purchaser, the importer and the seller of all essential food and clothing for the
people of the country. The first large purchases which were made by the Government were 10,000
bags of wheat, from Canada, and a large quantity of dates from Iraq. When supplies of food and
clothing were in the hands of the Government it was easier to prevent hoarding and profiteering al­
though inevitably there were leakages and a certain amount of Bahrain’s supplies were smuggled out
of the country and sold in the war inflated markets of Iraq and Iran where fabulous prices could be
obtained for goods which were sold at low prices by the Government of Bahrain.
Rationing was started in the middle of 1361. It began with a sugar ration and a ration for
divers. At the same time a system of barter was introduced to encourage Persian nakhudas to bring
meat, ghee, vegetables and firewood to Bahrain. They were allowed to buy, in proportion to their
imports, tea, sugar and piecegoods. When a quota of cereals, sugar, piecegoods, etc., from India was
allowed for Bahrain the basis for the quantity was the figure of the census that was made in 1359
(1940-41). The amount of cereals allowed in the quota was less than the requirements of the popula­
tion and in this respect Bahrain probably came off worse than the other states in the Gulf where no
census had ever been compiled. The 1359 census was the first that was ever taken in Bahrain,
according to it the number of inhabitants was 90,000, six years later according to ration cards, the
inhabitants of Bahrain numbered 104,000, but in books of reference, compiled before any census was
held, the population is given as between 150,000 and200,000, though how and from where these figures
were obtained is not known to the Bahrain Government. After a very short time it was found that the
quota only allowed a ration of cereals of 20 lbs. per head and half the quantity for children under 11
years and this ration, which is small for a community where no cereals are grown locally, has conti­
nued up to the present time. In certain cases it was augmented as later in the war labourers employed
by the Bahrain Petroleum Company and some who worked with military units were issued by their
employers with a generous quantity of additional rations at subsidised prices. It might be supposed
that the introduction of a rationing system among a scattered and almost illiterate people was a
formidable task, experience proved the contrary, rationing was accepted far more easily and willingly
than many less general measures which have been instituted by the Government in the past, propa­
ganda was put out from the wireless station and in the local newspaper but little of this reached the
villages. The matter was explained to the country people at meetings of the elders of the villages and
a local committee, which was formed in 1361, to help and advise the Food Controller, was of the great­
est use in making known to the public the objects and wishes of the Government. This committee,
known as the Food Committee, presided over by Shaikh Abdulla bin Isa, continues to function. 15
members were deliberately chosen from among people who had no direct concern in the sale or import
of controlled goods and, as nearly as is possible in Bahrain, where most people are connected by com­
mercial or financial or family ties with each other, they have preserved an altruistic attitude. Ration
cards were first introduced into the towns and supplies of rationed goods were issued by the Govern­
ment to shops in the villages according to the population of each village, but it was soon found that one
system would have to be applied everywhere and by 1362 everyone in Bahrain possessed a ration book.

One of the difficulties which the Government had to contend with was the different style of
living in the various communities. Sugar was not used in the Bahama villages except very rarely
for very young children, in the towns it was in great demand for use in tea, on the other hand tea
was not drunk in the villages where the people were accustomed to coffee. Wheat bread formed a
part of the staple diet in the towns but it was not eaten in the villages whose people have never pos­
sessed ovens for baking bread. The divers too were addicted to particular kinds of food but it was
found, when rice was no longer obtainable, that wheat porridge made from partly crushed grain with
a liberal addition of date juice formed an acceptable diet for divers. In normal times there were
no shops in most of the villages and the people bought their weekly needs from the open Thursday
market at Suk-al-I£hamis or from the-Manaraa bazaar. Government shops were opened in a number
of village centres and supplied with ration goods for sale to villages in the neighbourhood and a number
of shopkeepers in the towns were licensed to sell rationed food and cotton goods. All transactions