publication of seditious material.
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Constel. No
The suspension of the three newspapers concerned has
been followed by the appearance of single sheet "Mosquito" Broad
have been Sheets reproducing items from the main papers. They are being→
A
widely distributed free of charge and at first little importance
was attached by the Hong Kong authorities to their circulation.
They have, however, subsequently been used to indicate targets
for assassination and to issue terrorists warnings. On the
28 August, six prominent persons (including two Chinese unofficial
members of the Executive Council; the Chinese Acting Secretary for
Chinese Affairs; an Editor and a Publisher of the anti-Communist
press) were named as targets for assassination
on the same
day a small warning parcel bomb was posted to one of the Executive
Councillors (the bomb was detected and safely dealt with).
This
development has necessarily completely changed the attitude of the
Hong Kong authorities towards the road sheets
proad
and the Governor
considers that action must be taken to deal with them in order to
maintain public confidence in the ability of the Hong Kong
Government to control the situation and to prevent an excess of
confidence on the part of the Communists (of which there are
some indications) because of any apparent weakness in that control.
7. There appear to be two courses open to us, namely:
(a) To introduce comprehensive emergency regulations giving full
power to deal with the press generally,
These
(b) To introduce emergency regulations giving power to deal We asked Hong Kong to consider
Felgram No. W 1840). specifically and solely with the Broad Sheets.
The two primary considerations to be borne in mind in deciding
which course of action to follow are, on the one hand the need of
the Hong Kong authorities to preserve public confidence and to
amat
control the situation in the Colony, and on the other hand the
provoking Chanc into intervention in Homey Kong of
danger of reprisals by the C.P,G against the staff of our Mission
or
}
in Peking against Mr. Gray, the Reuters Correspondent under house arrest in Peking(or indeed, against any other British subjects
in China.
17