BY AIR MAIL.
My dear Cowell,
Mong hong.
Government House,
June 4th, 1938.
18102
170
I am very grateful for the Secretary of
State's telegram dated 1st June, 1938, supporting my action
in respect of refugees from South China who wish to shelter
in Hong Kong. The situation is very difficult, especially
where conflict arises between conscience that is to say
humane scruples against refusing safe harbour to the
oppressed and, on the other hand, duty towards this Colony,
which is already over-crowded to an extent that is dangerous
to public health.
Many people here believe that the
situation in South China is going to worsen rather than
improve and I share that belief; obviously it would be good
strategy on Japan's part to sicken South China of the war,
and, secondly, to cut the Chinese railway communication from
the South. I am being pressed by the Medical and Ecclesiastical
Authorities to begin building refugee camps in the Colony: I
am quite certain, and they do not deny, that supposing
accommodation were put up for ten or fifty thousand people
or even more, it would be very rapidly filled without any
solution of our problem. There is no doubt that one could
take ten thousand people from the over-crowded tenements of
Hong Kong today and yet leave them seriously over-crowded;
indeed I feel sure that were such a camp to be erected for
refugees from outside Hong Kong it would be filled with the
temporary excess population of this town before many new
refugees could come in. At the same time news of the camp
H. R. COWELL, ESQ., C.M.G.