In any further communication
on this subject, please quote
No. F 8795/130/10.
and address-
not to any person by name
but to-
"The Under-Secretary of State,"
Foreign Office,
London, S.W.1.
Important.
Duf
RECEIVED
4 - NOV 1937
C. O. REGY
FOREIGN OFFICE.
S.W.1.
3rd November, 1937.
54
43
Sir,
44.
With reference to your letter No. 53838/10/37 Important
of the 30th October, I am directed by Mr. Secretary Eden to
state that he feels some reluctance in concurring in the
publication either in Hong Kong or in this country of the
report of the Commission of Enquiry into the sinking of
Chinese fishing junks by Japanese naval forces before he
has been given an opportunity to study the terms of that
report. It is not clear to Mr. Eden that publication, or at
any rate immediate publication, is absolutely necessitated
by the fact of the evidence having been published and he
ventures to suggest, for the consideration of Mr. Secretary
Ormsby Gore, that the Officer Administering the Government
of Hong Kong should be instructed to refrain from publication
for the present and to send home copies of the report in
typescript in order that the question of publication may be
further considered here. Mr. Eden feels that there is already
much bitterness in Anglo-Japanese relations and that the terms
of a report which might further embitter those relations should
be a matter for the closest and most careful consideration.
I am,
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
Gw. Onde
The Under-Secretary of State,
Colonial Office.