7
N°
200.
RES
C.
260
40390
REC 13 AUG 201
GOVERNMENT HOUSE.
HONGKONG. 17th June, 1920.
My Lord,
With reference to Your Lordship's circular
despatch of the 10th March, 1920, I have the honour to inform
you that the quantity of luggage belonging to former German
prisoners of war and internees left behind in this Colony
will, it is considered, require about 50 tons space for
transportation to Germany. A considerable quantity of
personal effects of prisoners of war captured at Tsingtao and interned in Japan were forwarded during 1919 through the
agency of the Netherlands Consul-General to the owners in
Japan. The bulk of the remainder belongs, therefore, to
civil interned prisoners who were sent to Australia and to
ships' officers of various German lines which were left in
charge of the German local agents sometime before the out-
break of war.
A large amount of this luggage cannot be identified with any particular owner and it will require, therefore, to be dealt with in bulk, repacked in new cases and so forwarded for distribution by the German Government to claimants. I would point out also that as most of these goods consist of old clothing, boots, &c. which have been packed in unlined boxes, many of them extremely fragile, they must have suffered considerably from the effects of a damp
tropical
RIGHT HONOURABLE
VISCOUNT MILNER, G.C.B.,
&c..
&c.
&c..
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