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that it is essentially the job of the Minister
at Peking to keep the Foreign Office, and
indirectly ourselves, informed of the actual
situation in China.
I would have written before, only
I was waiting to get a chance of discussing
the matter with Southern and of finding out
from him the origin of these despatches, which
are more or less for intelligence purposes.
Southorn tells me that they are prepared
in your Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, and that
if we don't want them they would be only too glad
to be relieved of the bother of sending them.
While we are naturally most interested
to get them, and especially when the information
contained in them affects the interests of Hong Kong,
I can understand to a certain extent the Minister
at Peking feeling that we are butting into his
ouffant
job.
might
I think, therefore, it would be as well to
confine despatches of this kind to reporting events
which in your opinion directly affect the interests
of
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