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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
tion has provided grants, loans, farm buildings and livestock to villages throughout the region. In July the Legislative Council approved the establishment of а Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association Fund, which is to be made up of parallel contributions from the Association and from the Government. The work of the Association is described in more detail in the Production Chapter.
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
The general political situation in the Far East continued to be unsettled in various ways, but public confidence in Hong Kong remained steady. The Colony's population, as in former years, was concerned chiefly with its own affairs.
Although the attitude of the Chinese Government towards Hong Kong may still be described as aloof, in the spirit of coexistence there were indications of a more relaxed attitude. Entry permits were increasingly granted to people wishing to visit China for business or pleasure, and a number of business men of British and other nationalities visited Peking, Shanghai and Canton. Included among the visitors was a further British Trade Mission, which included a number of Hong Kong representatives. While the value of contracts signed by its members was not high, it was generally considered to have been of advantage in furthering connexions with Chinese commercial interests, and it was agreed by the Chinese authorities that further visits by individual business men would be useful. There were forecasts in certain quarters of some relaxation in the current restrictions on trade with China, but in fact the general situation did not change.
On 11 April a serious incident occurred which became international news. An aircraft of Air-India International, the Kashmir Princess, which had been chartered by the Chinese Government to take a party of their representatives to the first Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung, Indonesia, crashed on a flight between Hong Kong and Jakarta with the loss of 16 lives. Very soon after the crash, an announcement from Peking plainly suggested that an act of sabotage had been committed, and the Hong Kong Government followed this within a few hours by starting that a thorough investi- gation was being made, and that if there was evidence of