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addressed to:-
THE SECRETARY,
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quoted :-
Number: Whitehall 6200.
NATIONAL
FOR
SCHEME
MEN-3W
DISABLED
MINISTRY OF LABOUR,
MONTAGU HOUSE,
WHITEHALL,
14
24
LONDON, S.W.I.
2nd February, 1937.
Smith (15)
ما
Lalag
Dear Farmer,
I thank you for sending me the cutting from the Hong-Kong weekly press containing the report of what Mr. Chao Pan-fu is supposed to have said at the Maritime Conference in Geneva last October. I have been all through the minutes of the conference and also the minutes of the committees at which individual subjects were discussed in detail but can find nothing resembling the report. Mr. Chao did move resolutions dealing with the "contractor" system of employment and with equality of treatment for national and foreign seamen and I should have expected his remarks to be made in connection with one or other of these. As reported, however, he does not seem to have made any long speech in connection with them.
I have asked various members of the delegation if they remember hearing any criticism of Hong-Kong from Mr. Chao, particularly the representative who attended the committee dealing with the welfare of seamen in port where I thought something of the kind might be said. He did not remember anything, however, but suggested I should speak to one of the representatives of the Government of India who might be expected to pay particular attention to statements by the representatives of Eastern countries. He had no recollection of any such remarks either. The only person who did have any remembrance at all of something being said concerning Hong-Kong was the principal delegate, Mr. Jenkins of the Board of Trade, but he could remember no details or when it was said.
As a matter of fact he was very busy with the question of hours of work and manning, and could not pay much attention to anything else.
The report of the speeches in the conference proper is supposed to be verbatim but the minutes of the committees are sometimes very much abbreviated. I noticed when looking through the minutes of the welfare in port committee that the Chinese Government representative made a speech with regard to conditions in ports in the far East and had been supported by the workers' representative. I thought this might have been the speech you were after, drastically summarised, but I understand that Mr. Chao did not make a speech on this occasion.
F. Farmer, Esq.,
Colonial Office,
Whitehall, S.W.1.
/I