Copy
53514/1/36.
3034
Colonial office,
Downing Street, S.W.1.
5th January, 1937.
Dear Bridges,
Thank you for your letter of the 4th January
S.32267/2) about the Kai Tak Aerodrome at Hong Kong.
I have, of course, been aware of your earlier correspondence
with Gent about this question, and it was only after
considering the terms of your letters to him that it was
decided that the time had come to take the question up
officially with the Treasury, and it is for this purpose
that the official letter and memorandum of the 3rd of
December was drafted and sent from the Colonial Office.
A further semi-official reply from the Treasury is not
really what we have been expecting. The matter concerns
a question of substantial importance to Hong Kong, and the
Treasury will no doubt fully consider the attitude of the
Secretary of State for the Colonies as expressed in the
last paragraph of the memorandum enclosed in the official
letter from the Colonial Office.
In the circumstances, therefore, any question of
Colonial Office representatives being appointed to attend a
meeting which you tell me you are arranging on the 13th of
January must await an official reply from the Treasury, in
which we should hope that the views officially expressed
by the Secretary of State for the Colonies will not be
dismissed, but will have most careful examination.
Yours sincerely,
(Signed) H.R. Cowell.
E.E. BRIDGES, ESQ., M.C.