ما
2
C.S. 41A
2600077
10,000-3/70-B74512
REF. SCR 5/3371/60 VI
Your ref: HKK 1/13
Dean Lan
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Enter
Mr. Morgan HKK!/13.
Yar Gamiana ANG
for Apple
Kowloon Walled City
COLONIAL SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
24th August, 1970.
PR 1/
4 main filie.
Thank you for your letter of 14th August. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting to close your file on a non-event, but it's only in the last few days that we've been able to write 'Finis' at the end of the cannon story.
2. The antiquarian value of the guns was never a very material factor in the case. Government wanted an excuse to withdraw without losing much face and the historic interest of the cannon would have been declared insufficient to justify removing them from the Walled City had they been cast in rarest bronze. As it is, they were big (Hong Kong telegram No. 406), made of iron, cast in Canton in 1802 with inscriptions to prove it and with no known market value. Discussion among local antiquaries has been apt to peter off into suggestions that 'something should be done' about older cannon known to lie neglected in various parts of the Colony.
3. The unofficial Walled City kaifong have now mounted the two cannon on a concrete platform in front of the old Yamen; a most suitable conclusion. I mean to go over and have a look at them some time.
4. And the kick is in the coda. You will remember from the last paragraph of Hong Kong telegram No. 406 that NCNA seemed not to have had instructions when they passed their message on 23rd June. We now learn, to our amusement and satisfaction, that they were. subsequently rapped over the knuckles from Peking for doing anything so incompatible with the sending of goodwill messages to The Queen.
ple
Yours ween
Chris
(C. J. Howells) Political Adviser
L.V. Appleyard, Esq., Far Eastern Department, F.C.O.
c.c. Chancery, Peking.
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