Copy.
NO DISTRIBUTION.
Telegram (en clair) from Mr. Sharman, (Saigon).
D.
June 30th, 1938.
R.
July 9th, 1938.
No. 6.
SAVING.
206
My savingrams Nos. 4 and 5 of 21st and 22nd June
addressed to Foreign Office.
The enclosed copy of an extract from the Straits Budget,
a weekly edition of the Straits Times of Singapore, dated 23rd
June, is forwarded for such attention as it deserves.
It appears
to be a composition based mainly on Japanese sources.
2.
I find it necessary to state that there have not been
any persistent reports (vide paragraph 9 of enclosure) in this
town to the effect that France is contemplating the establishment
of a protectorate over the Island of Hainan. This statement is,
if not the invention of a fertile imagination, at most the
reflection of the natural pre-occupation of even the man in the
street, and of course the local press, with the question of the
potential menace to this country of a Japanese occupation of
Hainan, and of the consideration that the island is of little
strategic value to the Japanesein the present conflict.
3. On the subject of the assertion contained in paragraph
13 of the enclosure, namely, that large quantities of war
material proceed almost every day along the Haiphong-Yunnan fu
railway line, I venture to doubt whether the goods traffic on
this line in the north direction could be increased by between
50 and 100 per cent over the normal without attracting public
attention. On this subject I have at present no definite
information other than previously furnished by this Consulate-
General