Page 48 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (III)_Neat

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to government establishments and to private customers. Its total value was approximately
Rs. 3,ooo( 40% of which represents cost of materials, 35% cost of labour, 16% overhead charges and
8% profit. A costing system has been introduced and is working satisfactorily. It reveals that
school-trained workmen tend at first to be slow at their work and therefore costly in wages. This is
due to the insistence of instructors on good standards of accuracy and finish and their neglect of speed
training. This defect is now being remedied and in the case of the older workers it is proposed to
introduce a system of payment by results for all straightforward production work.
Students take part in contract work as soon as they have completed a course of preliminary
exercises in the use of tools and methods of construction. The greater part of the production work
however, is done by the workman-instructors and probationers. The employment of the latter has
effectively raised the standard of craftsmanship in the shop and made possible the manufacture of a
larger quantity and variety of trade work. The general standard would be described as that
of European commercial quality of joinery and cabinet making. It is greatly superior to most of the
work done in the local market. Some of the newer students show a capacity for higher skill but it
would not be advisable to elaborate their training as there arc no patrons of fine craftsmanship in
Bahrain.
With such progress in the woodwork section there comes some anxiety as to the future of the
better class of student now in training. The prices of Technical School work are much higher than
those of the local market, first because the market work is nearly all of faulty, cheap construction,
and secondly because the standard of life accepted by the market craftsmen is desperately low. These
men accept contracts at prices which provide only the meanest remuneration for their labour.
They live in conditions of poverty which arc in no way conducive to self respect or pride of citizenship.
They cannot imagine a condition in which manual skill is appreciated and handsomely rewarded.
That their crude work is accepted by their better-to-do neighbours is not surprising in a backward
community with the poorest standards of beauty, comfort and convenience ; but it is a matter for
reproach that others, not excluding public authorities, should fail to appreciate the difference even in
material value and durability between good work and bad.
This, then, is the economic milieu into which the school-trained worker has to fit. Unless it is
modified by a great increase in the demand for better class of work at reasonable prices he will be faced
with the alternatives of descending to the level of the other market workers, or abandoning his craft
altogether, seeking his living as a clerk in an office. At present the school itself is meeting the limited
demand for good work, but it is not primarily a business establishment. It will not be fulfilling its
proper function as a training centre until it can place its students in independent positions outside
and through them serve the public with new resources and skill.

MINORS DEPARTMENT.

This department is the nearest approach in Bahrain to the Public Trustee and it serves a very
useful purpose. It consists of a committee of prominent citizens, Sunni and Shia, under the presidency
of a shaikh of the ruling family with a permanent superintendent and clerical staff. Its office is in the
Law Courts building. No fees are charged for the administration of estates and the members of the
committee give their services voluntarily.
His Highness Shaikh Sulman was the first president but after his acccsssion he appointed his
brother Shaikh Daij bin Hamad Alkhalifah in his place with Shaikh Ali bin Khalifah bin Daij Alkhali-
fah as vice president. Towards the end of the year a new committee was formed, the retiring members
having served for four years, since the institution of this department. The retiring committee deserved
the thanks which they received from the Government for their valuable services which were freely
given for the benefit of the public. Their task in the beginning was not altogether enviable, the
committee was regarded with some suspicion and was opposed by the clerical party but during the four
years the department has gained the confidence of the public and is now a firmly established institution
capable of expansion. The people who oppose it arc actuated by motives of self interest and are
mostly persons who are grazing upon the rich pastures of widows' and orphans' estates.

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