103
-2-
would spread around South China and refugees would flock
in consequence; so that the last state of the Colony would
be worse than the first.
I have therefore decided to do nothing along
that line of solution until I get an answer from the Secretary
of State to my suggestion regarding a demilitarised area in
South China. The Kwangtung Authorities, I understand,
oppose this notion because they say that experience in
Nanking and Nantao has shewn that the Japanese soldiery will
not respect it: but I am inclined to think that this is to
some extent an excuse for inaction on their part. I feel
very sorry for the Kwangtung rulers they are in an awful
hole: it is recognition of that which condones in my view
what would otherwise be an impertinent message sent by
General Wu Te-chen through Dr. Andrew Lin through the
Consul-General in Canton, to the effect that they regard
as 'unfriendly' the condition imposed by the Hong Kong
Government upon refugees expecting shelter in Hong Kong that
each should have $20 in his or her possession. Blunt, the
Consul-General answered them strongly and to the point, and
I have sent a letter to Blunt pointing out that the amount
of $20 is an exceedingly low one and signifies little more
than that we cannot allow the thousands of beggars, who at
the present time are infesting Canton's streets, to transfer
themselves to Hong Kong's.
I hope most earnestly that the Foreign
Office will succeed in arranging with the Chinese and
Japanese Authorities for a large asylum in South China to
which women, children and infirm men may resort. I see no
reason why men of military age should be allowed to take
refuge there, and I believe that it is the case that the
Japanese rightly suspected that Chinese soldiers were