432
]
C
Hong Kong on 16th July with instructions to represent the unanimous views of the Creditors to the Liquidatore.
You will no doubt have received from the Colonial Office
O in Hong Kong correspondence, in which the criticisms of the
British Creditors have been commented on, but we venture to suggest that a perusal of the letter enclosed is sufficient to establish the fact that the opinions the Committee formed were to a considerable extent justified and that without this criticism the interests of the British unsecured Creditors might have been seriously prejudiced.
We are still of opinion that the position of the Bank as Secured Creditors requires the fullest investigation and particularly with reference to the addition to the overdraft claimed to be secured of the sum of £2,000 Credit granted to Mr. Carl Heermann in Germany very shortly before the declaration of War, and only added to the overdraft in Hong Kong some considerable time after War had been declared.
With the limited information we have, this procedure seems to us on the face of it, to amount to the Bank endeavouring to recoup a credit granted in an enemy country out of assets in a British Colony at the expense of unsecured British Creditors.
We must again express our surprise that the liquidatore did not at an earlier stage take the steps they are now taking,