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EXTRACT FROM LETTER DATED 31st MAY, 1939 from A. E. MARK???
HONGKONG.
Since my arrival here, and as a result of the various
conversations I have had with various people, I am more than ever
impressed by the confusion and the complete absence of co-operation
or co-ordination as between the various Government trading concerns
and the Institutions sponsoring them.
As you of course know, at the back of all this is primarily
the personal feud between Kung and Soong, and in matters such as
this where one is powerless obviously to effect remedies, it is
above all things essential to deal with the situation with which
one is confronted.
The Chinese themselves are all aware of, and in private con-
versation will admit the facts of the situation, but I have no
reason whatsoever to think there is any prospect of any sort of
remedy being thought out. Under the circumstances, it is unfor-
tunately probable that the present confusion will continue, to the
great detriment of all concerned. So long as this confusion con-
tinues at the very source it is of course useless to try and evolve
schemes to deal with this and that situation.
So far as the position in London is concerned, it is abundantly
clear that the Chinese have no plans at all. There do not appear
to be any arrangements at all for the payment of exports from the
U.K. by exports from China, and I rather gained the impression from
my conversations with Tsuyee Pei that there is no desire at all out
here to turn these London Credits into something of a Barter
arrangement.
I am personally very doubtful whether anything will be done to
create any sort of organisation at all in London.
Even if we should eventually succeed in negotiating some thing
of this sort, it seems to me inevitable that, so long as this
intense confusion and discord persists at thid end, no London
organisation could hope to work satisfactorily.
It must also be
remembered that the Chinese appear to be so completely in the dark,
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