imprisonment ranging from one year to life sentence. There were 6 acquittals and one case involving one accused was dis- missed.
The Hong Kong War Trials during 1947 included those of Major-Generals Tanaka and Shoji, each of whom commanded a Japanese infantry regiment in the assault on Hong Kong in December, 1941; Admiral Sakonju who was accused of ordering 69 passengers of the British motor vessel "Behar", sunk in the Indian Ocean, to be butchered on the deck of a Japanese cruiser; Colonel Kanazawa, successor to Colonel Noma as head of the Japanese Gendarmerie in Hong Kong and Kowloon; and Captain Saito for atrocities in prisoner-of-war camps. In addition Lieutenant-General Isogai Rensuke, who was Japanese Governor- General of Hong Kong from February 1942 to December 1944, was tried at Nanking by a Chinese War Crimes Court on evidence prepared by the Hong Kong War Crimes Investigation Team for causing the wholesale arrest and deportation of Chinese civilians from Hong Kong.
Only one Investigation Team was in operation in 1947, as compared with two in 1946. Investigations are at present in which 250.000 allied progress concerning "hell ships" in prisoners-of-war were transported by the Japanese from South East Asia in conditions of utmost inhumanity. These investi- gations are being undertaken in conjunction with American authorities and the trial, if such takes place, will be by an American Court in Japan with a British Officer as a member of the Court.
POLICE.
Duties of the Police.
The scope of police work in Hong Kong is varied and the Police Force is recruited from various sources. The traffic problem in the urban areas is similar to that in any busy modern city and to it is added the control of some 60,000 street hawkers. The detection and prevention of crime is complicated by the proximity of the border over which all persons of Chinese race are in practice permitted to pass freely to and from Chinese territory. The policing of the Colony's territorial waters is carried out by a fleet of launches manned by about 260 men who compose the component known as the Water Police. The long and deeply indented coast line with its many fishing villages, accessible more easily by sea than by land, has to be patrolled and protected from piracy. The New Territories have few roads (there are no roads on the islands) and the rugged, inhospitable nature of the terrain is a perpetual tempta- tion to the more primitive forms of banditry.
Organisation and Composition of the Police Force.
The authorized establishment of the Police Force is 3,325 all ranks, but at the close of 1947 the actual strength was only 2,807. Of this number the vast majority of the rank and file
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