IOR/R/15/2/684

The file comprises correspondence, memoranda and statistical data relating to the monitoring of imports and exports of important commodities into and out of Bahrain and the states of the Trucial Coast, as part of the wider export license controls and Navicert system of trade and contraband control during the Second World War. The principal correspondents in the file are the Political Agent at Bahrain (Major Reginald George Evelin William Alban), the Residency Agent at Sharjah (Khan Sahib Saiyid ‘Abd al-Razzaq), and the Director of Customs at Bahrain (Claud Cranbrook Lewis DeGrenier).

The file includes:

• copies of correspondence exchanged between the India Office in London, the Government of India, and the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf (Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Geoffrey Prior), relating to proposals for the extension of export control licenses and the Navicert system to the states of the Persian Gulf. The correspondence includes a request for an estimate of annual imports and consumption of commodities in the Persian Gulf, and details of the decision to monitor on an ongoing monthly basis, imports and exports of important commodities, and commodities important to war purposes, at Bahrain and the Trucial Coast (ff 50-51);
• following a request from the Political Agent at Bahrain (f 53), dated 11 June 1941, monthly submissions from the Customs Director at Bahrain of imports and exports of commodities at Bahrain, starting July 1941 and running through to December 1942;
• following an identical request from the Political Agent at Bahrain (f 54), dated 11 June 1941, monthly submissions from the Residency Agent at Sharjah for imports and exports of commodities at Sharjah and Dubai, starting July 1941 and running through to February 1943;
• statistics for the import and export of commodities at Bahrain, Sharjah and Dubai, collated from the reports received by the Customs Director at Bahrain and from the Residency Agent at Sharjah, forwarded to His Majesty’s Secretary of State for India at the India Office, the Secretary to the Government of India in the External Affairs Department, and the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf;
• correspondence and file notes (ff 355-356) relating to the need for an additional clerk at the Political Agency in Bahrain, to handle the increased volume of work created at the Agency by the War, including correspondence between the Political Agent in Bahrain, the Political Resident, and representatives of the Customs House at Karachi, over the employment of one of latter’s own clerks at Bahrain (ff 112-113, ff 131-136);
• correspondence relating to a request from the Foreign Department, Delhi, for statistics on the amount of rice, wheat and wheat flour imported from India into the Persian Gulf for the six-month period June to December 1942 (ff 304-310).