45
5.
Please let me have your own further views
together with a report from Hle Majesty's Consul-
General Shanghai on point 4 and your observations
on point 6 of this summary, and at the same time
ascertain and report to me the views of His Majesty's
Consul-General at Shanghai and Canton on the
expediency and effectiveness of reprisals made so
far away from the scene of the cutrage.
I cannot myself but fear that such reprisals
would be damaging to the more modcrate elements now
apparently in the ascendent at Canton and without
effect on the Yangtze area where the outrage was
committed. Do you share my doubts on this point?
Do you consider it expedient, now that Chiang
Kai-shek is taking active steps to repress the
extremists, to use any sanctions which would fall on
him? If not, can you suggest any sanctions which
would not be open to this objection that they would
do more injury to the moderate than the extreme
and anti-British faction in the Nationalist
government?
Repeat Canton for Hongkong, Shanghai for
Commander-in-Chief.