Enclosure No.1 in Mr. Brennan's despatch No.51 of April 16th, 1928.
Xo. 57
E
COPY.
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
54
HONGKONG.
20th March, 1928.
gir,
I have the honour to inform you that I have received
a telegram from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated
13th March, approving the proposal made in my telegram of the
20th February that I should notify Mr. Lau Cheak Pan (
}
that I cannot permit him to function any longer in Hong Kong as
Superintendent of the Chinese Telegraph office; that he must
vacate the premises at once and hand over to the Electrical
Engineer of the Hong Kong Public Works Department,who will
temporarily act as custodian; that I should then endeavour
to arrange that the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company should
assume control of this office under a working arrangement with
the Canton authorities; and that meanwhile telegraphic messages
between Canton and Hong Kong should be handled by the Government
wireless stations at both ends.
2.
You will recollect that at the conference which I had
with Marshal Li Chai-gum at Canton on the 10th March, at which
you were present, the Cantonese Authorities urged that I should
not close down, even temporarily, the Chinese Telegraph Office in Hong Kong, but that I should allow the Canton Government to
nominate a superintendent of this office. It was then agreed between Marshal Li and myself that the Canton Government should be permitted to send a Cantonese merchant to Hong Kong to be manager of this office, such merchant to be persona grata to the Hong Kong Government and not to be an official, and the title of the post to be "Commercial Agent in charge of the Chinese
Telegraph Office in Hong Kong".
3. If the/
His Britannic Majesty's Consul General,
Canton.