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The Governor of Hong Kong surveys these
applications, not merely from the point of view of
their possible embarrassment during present hostilities
in China but from the point of view of long term
interests of the Colony. While he thinks that an
aircraft industry will eventually be found to be
very desirable as an adjunct to the Airport, he
believes that some regulation and control will be
necessary as a matter of policy, and he suggests for
instance that there might be one assembly factory
associated with British interests and one with American.
Assuming that any industry of this character would
desire to be sited on the Kai Tak Aerodrome, the
Governor's views as to the need of limitation of these
enterprises would seem to be essential.
The advice which we have received from the
Air Ministry on this problem in their letter, No. 126,
does not really help us, but we may extract from their
letter the opinion that they favour the establishment
in the Far East of an aircraft factory under British
control. They would favour on strategic grounds that,
if there is to be only one factory, it should be
established in Burma rather than in Hong Kong. There
might be advantages in influencing the Japanese if
an Anglo-American aircraft factory were established at
Hong Kong.
These views are supplemented by the Board
of Trade in No. 131. They say they are not concerned
on behalf of the U.K. trade interests with the question
whether the factory is to be in Burma or Hong Kong
but