COPY
PATCH NO.7
22/5/52)
POLITICAL AGENCY,
DOHAH.
13th March, 1952.
Sir,
I have to report that His Excellency the Ruler today
signed a decree, of which a copy is attached, proclaiming
the abolition of slavery in Qatar as from April 10th, 1952.
I inserted in the draft decree April 10th, 1952 as the
limit of the period within which compensation is payable,
and as the date on which clauses 3 and 5 come into force.
2. In the final clause specifying a maximum punishment
for offenders I had inserted "a fine of Rs.5000 or two
years imprisonment or both", which I believe had been
previously proposed, though I have no record of it. The
Ruler argued for several days over this clause. The English
"may be punished etc can apparently be expressed in Arabic
only as "will be punished etc and the Ruler understandably
refused to bind himself to take such action against a man
like Sa'ud of Wakrah, who will almost certainly not free his
slaves. He proposed instead the ridiculous clause "I will
not interfere to enforce upon a slave-owner compliance with
this decree". I therefore took the liberty of suggesting that
the mention of a maximum sentence should be omitted, and he
reluctantly accepted this with the proviso that he would not
be bound to enforce the decree against those who may keep
their slaves in slavery beyond April 10th. This need not
prevent us from urging him to authorise his police to do so
when the time come s.
3. The difficult question of compensation remains. The
list of slaves which the Ruler produced, containing 158 names,
is not complete, and many names are given in insufficient
detail to serve as a check on identity. It contains the
names of some slaves who have already been manumitted, and to
guard against this kind of fraud we have given the Ruler a
list of all slaves manumitted by the Political Officer. The
Ruler himself seems quite confident of his ability to decide,
in consultation with the Adviser, whether and how much com pensation shall be paid in each case, I could not get him
to discuss figures, but the Adviser is afraid he may insist
on giving Rs. 3000 for every man, woman and child. Even so I
think the Government's money would be better spent liberally
in such a cause than on many of the purposes for which it is
disbursed at present. I hope however that the Ruler may yet
delegate the assessment of compensation to the Adviser and his
son Shaikh Ahmed, as he leaves for Lebanon on March 20th and
may well be absent till April 10th.
I am,
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
(sgd.) M. S. Weir.
Her Majesty's Political Agent,
Bahrain.
