Page 99 - The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia

notice of the opening of the office until the improved arrangements
have been working for some time”!
The Director-General of the Post Office of India did not sec eyc-
to-cyc with this last suggestion; but, nevertheless, the Foreign Depart­
ment of the Government of India recommended to the Secretary of
State for India, on October 27th, 1910, that Kuwait should have a
regular Post Office. The India Office, in their reply of February 10th,
1911, considered that, for the same reason as before, “the proposal
should for the present remain in abeyance”.

In the meantime, however, Shakespear had fired another broad­
side on November 22nd, 1910 — his recommendation having Cox’s full
•V
support. This letter is particularly interesting, for it states .. at
present the official Post Office for Kuwait is Bushire ...” and, in
reporting the frequent request by “leading and other merchants for a
regular Post Office with the same facilities of Indian Inland rates of
postage as at Bahrain and Maskat” (sic), mentioned that “all postal
matter, inward and outward, is subject to the comparatively heavy
Union rates of postage”.
Shakespear tried again in March 1912 and presented details of
greatly increased postal business in contradiction of a new objection,
to the establishment of a regular Post Office, by the Government of
India which maintained that the amount of postal work was very light
and “even modest facilities now afforded entailed considerable loss on
the postal department”. His figures certainly show startling increases
since 1909-10; the value of stamps sold had risen to almost Rs500 per
annum (though many merchants apparently still obtained their
supplies from Bushire or India), incoming parcels had risen to 1,813
and registered articles to 2,306, and outward letters now numbered
12,000 per annum. As for the alleged loss on the postal department
he pointed out that the only expense was the Postal Peon’s salary
(Rs240 per annum) and some of the time of the Postmaster at Bushire,
the rest of the work being done by his Head Clerk without remunera­
tion.
His letter continued “My office is treated by the local public
exactly as a Post Office, there is a special room for the work, and the
usual red letter-box fixed in a wall so that, to all outward appearances,
there is already a Post Office ... Moreover, we have carried on the
postal work in Kuwait now for over seven years...”

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