60
found pleasure in calling the Chinese before them in large
groups, and contrasting the benevolence of the Japanese
authorities towards them with the barbarous outrages
practiced against Japanese residents in China.
Consequent-
ly, there have been no large scale evacuations up to the
present, but there have been floods of rumours-
One
that was current a week ago stated that my Chinese
colleague would be leaving Formosa before long, and wa
advising the Chinese community to withdraw first. My
Chinese colleague denied such action at the time, but, as
a result of the report, the Chinese mployees of most of
the foreign firms approached their managers, and asked
whether, supposing the Chinese Consul General withdrew,
they, as employees of British or American firms (as the
case might be), could not be granted some measure of
British or American protection The retention of these
men is of considerable moment to the ten-firms, since the
tea season is now at its height, and the key-nen in all
the firms happen to be Chinese nationala. Then I was
approached, I naturally had to reply that, while I should
give British firms all the protection I could, I had ne
status enabling me to take up the private difficulties
of their Chinese employees.
However, I saw My. Sakamoto,
head of the Foreign Section of the Government General, and
I obtained from him guarded assurances
(a) that the authorities did not propose to interfere with the contimied employment of well-behaved ChineDO}
and (b) that the British firms by continuing to employ such Chinese would not incur the suspicion or ill-will of the Japanese authorities-
This information I passed on to those concerned, and, so
far as I have as yet heard, all the Chinese in British
empley propose to remain
&
Considering that any Chinese who leave would
only be allowed to take a very limited amount of worldly
wealth with them, that their means of subsistence on
arrival