Abstract: Consists of a report by Valentine Hugh Wilfred Dowson entitled 'Notes on a few day's journey to the West of Maskat'. The report is divided into sections including climate; geology; communications; flora and fauna. There then follows three sections on agriculture. Agriculture I reports on labour, cultivation and implements and irrigation. The section 'Agriculture II' reports on dates and date palms, their distribution and incidence; cultivation; date of ripening; cooked dates, disease, yield, price, packing and varieties. The section 'Agriculture III' examines other crops such as fruit trees and ground crops. Other sections cover population, government, and trade.There is correspondence between Dowson and Major George Patrick Murphy, Political Agent Muscat discussing the report's significance. Also included is correspondence between Lionel Berkeley Haworth, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, the India Office and Department of Overseas Trade about the potential of the date trade in Muscat.Physical description: Foliation: The main foliation sequence commences at the title page and terminates at the last folio; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and can be found in the top right corner of the recto side of each folio. A second foliation sequence runs between ff 2-71; these numbers are written in a combination of pencil and type (sometimes the pencil corrects the type, or duplicates it), are not circled, and can be found in the same position as the main sequence.Foliation errors. 1 and 1A.
Abstract: Correspondence and other papers relating to the export of dates from Mesopotamia [Iraq] during Britain’s military occupation of Mesopotamia in the First World War. The file includes: correspondence dated 1916 relating to the lifting of a general prohibition on the export of dates from Mohammerah [Khorramshahr] and Basra (as well as from Muscat), in view of Mesopotamia’s status as enemy territory; in 1917, proposals to prohibit the export of dates from Mesopotamia to destinations other than Britain or its wartime allies; in 1917, the supply of dates to British troops in France, including arrangements for purchase and freight by the War Office; a copy of a printed British diplomatic and consular report entitled ‘Turkey. Report for the Year 1913 on the Trade of Basra’, edited at the Foreign Office and Board of Trade (ff 293-303); reports in early 1918 that the demand for dates in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf exceeded supply, leading to the Foreign Office’s initial decision to decline a request from the Government of the USA for the Hills Brothers Company of New York to export dates from Mesopotamia, a decision that was reversed in March 1918; price controls on dates for export, arranged in 1918; correspondence dated 1919 on the future policy of restrictions on dates exported from Mesopotamia.The volume’s principal correspondents are: the Chief Political Officer of the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force, Percy Zachariah Cox; the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India; the Foreign Office; the War Office; the Ministry of Food.The volume contains a single item in French, being a note from the French Ambassador in London (f 69).The volume includes a divider which gives the subject number, the year the subject file was opened, the subject heading, and a list of correspondence references by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.Physical description: Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the first folio with 1 and terminates at the last folio with 348; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto side of each folio. The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers, nor does it include the leading and ending flyleaves. A previous foliation sequence, which is also circled, has been superseded and therefore crossed out.