GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
HONG KONG,
16
11
(9)
SECRET
Dear Cowell,
RECEIVED
17 JUL 1936
June 12th, 1936.
9
Thank you for your Secret letter No.53714/36
of the 27th March on the subject of enlistment of German
residents in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Force.
On the 19th May Command Headquarters here
issued instructions, by order of the War Office, that they
were not to be enlisted. As you point out in your letter
under reply it was really a matter for the Governor and not
for the War Office, but as I agree entirely with the decision
arrived at, and as neither General Bartholomew nor I had
arrived in Hong Kong when the reference to the War Office
was made, I do not desire to call in question the authority
on which the order rests. We are working here in the fullest
and happiest liaison, and I am quite sure that there is no
desire whatever on the part of Command Headquarters to put
the Governor out of the picture.
Yours sincerely,
Calderm
H.R. Cowell, Esq., C.M.G.,
Colonial Office.