Any reply to this letter should be addressed to-
THE SECRETARY,
TREASURY,
WHITEHALL, LONDON, SW.. and the following number quoted.
TREASURY CHAMBERS.
5175
16
sir,
9th
March 1916.
REG_ŷ MA 16,
266
15
1074, que
Dogmourd
I have laid before the Lords Commissioners of
14) (0695/1916).
His Majesty's Treasury Mr. Read's letter of the 23rd ultimo
(8695/1916), and its accompanying copy of telegraphic correspondence with the Governor of Hong Kong regarding the detention of 38 German prisoners of military age.
I am to invite a reference to Treasury Letter of the 6th March last (5705/15) in which Their Lordships expressed the opinion that if Colonial Governments should raise objection to bearing charges in respect of enemy. subjects taken into colonial ports by His Majesty's Shipe or removed from British merchant ships by the local authorities, the charges should fall on Army Funds, but that offers to bear these charges should not be made where Colonial Governments did not ask for reimbursement.
In the present case the Governor in his telegram makes no mention of the cost of the prisoners' maintenance in Hong Kong, but definitely proposes that the expenses of sending them to Australia should fall upon the Colony. My Lords see no reason for transferring the charge to Imperial: funds.
I am to remind Hr. Secretary Bonar Law that in the only two cases which have been brought to Their notice,
The Under Secretary of State,
Colonial Office.
those