NO. CONFIDENTIAL.
༡
Sir,
3
15 AUG 1939 0.0. R53%
2365
143
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
HONG KONG.
3rd August, 1939.
I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of
your confidential despatch of 22nd June, 1939, on the
subject of the future financial arrangements for the
maintenance of the Hong Kong Travel Association.
2. The Directors of the Association have expressed
their disappointment at your inability to approve of the
proposals contained in my confidential despatch of 15th
April, 1939; they agree that prevailing conditions provide
one of the reasons for the failure of this Association to
attract adequate support at present, but they have pointed
out that even before the commencement of Sino-Japanese
hostilities they were not receiving as much support from
the business community as they had been led to expect.
The Directors are, however, willing to carry on the conduct
of the Association as an unofficial body, but it will be
necessary for activities which involve additional expense
to be curtailed and for the existing bureaux to continue
to function merely as information bureaux.
3.
I feel strongly that the most reasonable
settlement is one in which public subscriptions should
equal Government's contribution, and although I recognize
this as a desideratum unlikely to be realized, I am not
prepared to reject entirely the conditional element in
any grant from public funds.
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
MALCOLM MACDONALD, M.P.,
&c.,
&C.,
&C.
4.