CID.
Medical
Financial
"T"
1.
Gou
Desires
22.138.
telegraphic concurrence for vote 2
Expenditure on refugles-
in connection with expenditure
Ť which wo
already
in receipt of Imancial
assistance from the Col. Gove
The Governor asks for approval for the
payment from Hong Kong funds of nearly $10,000 to the
X
Hospital, to meet their expenditure in connection with
the care and repatriation of Chinese refugees, who
fled to Hong Kong from Japanese territory and the war
areas of China during the present conflict. The sum
involved is small, and in ordinary circumstances I
do not think there would be any objection to approval
for this expenditure. I am, however, inclined to think
that in the present circumstances it would form a
somewhat undesirable precedent. The care of Chinese
refugees is not, strictly speaking, the affair of the
Colonial Government, except in so far as it is
necessary to maintain reasonable sanitary conditions,
etc. in the Colony, and if they are to accept liability
in this way they may find themselves presented with a
somewhat embarrassing flood of applications for
financial assistance. I therefore venture to suggest
that we should
? acknowledge and say that while the S. of S.
would not normally desire to raise any objection over
the expenditure of what is comparatively a small sum,
he considers that the care and repatriation of Chinese
refugees of this kind is not strictly speaking the
responsibility of the Colonial Government, and that
he would therefore be glad to know, before approving
tnis expenditure, whether financial assistance of this
kind might not form a precedent which woula prove
somewhat embarrassing to the Colonial Government. If
however the Governor, upon consideration, does not
consider that this would be the case, then the S. of S.
is prepared to approve the reimbursement to the
Hospital of the sum proposed.
P. Rogers. ii. 38.
૩. ૫. 88,