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and telegrams are a very unsatisfactory substitute
especially as local conditions are not equally well
known to all the authorities concerned. I fully
recognize that a great step towards better organization has been made by the decision of His Majesty's
Government to vest a wide discretion in the Naval
Commander-in-Chief on the China station. Action in
every detail is thus no longer directed from London.
But I think that a study of the facts of this case
shows that even more discretion must be vested in the
men on the spotz, if British prestige is to be maintained
and British trade safeguarded under the chaotic and
anarchic conditions now prevailing in China. In
paragraph 7 of my secret despatch of the 23rd July,
1926, I urged that full discretion as to the use of
armed force in dealing with outrages on the frontier
of this Colony or by Chinese pirates in its vicinity
should be allowed to the Senior Naval Officer at
Hong Kong (if the Naval Commander-in-Chief was not
himself here), to the Officer Commanding the Forces
in Hong Kong and to myself acting in co-operation
and in unanimity. But in view of subsequent experience
I would now go further and recommend that, as regards
anti-British outrages which may be committed in Kuang-
tung, the Consul-General at Canton, in consultation with the Governor of Hong Kong, the General Officer Commanding the Forces at Hong Kong and the Senior Naval Officer at Hong Kong, should have authority to decide upon and enforce such retaliatory measures.
as may from time to time be necessary.
22.
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