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REPORT ON TAIPO TRANSMITTER CASE
125
For some time past we have had grave suspicions that illegal transmitting sets were being used in the Colony; owing to the extreme difficulty of obtaining correct results from the
Direction Finding apparatus, we have had little success in
locating them. On information received from the Police Inspector
at Taipo, New Territories, our suspicions were at last centred on a group of houses at Kam Shan and a raid was carried out on the 27th March, 1939. A 100-Watt Short Wave transmitter was found
in operation and a quantity of filed messages and documents.
These were all seized and four persons arrested and charged
before District Officer, North, yesterday. On the suggestion
of the Attorney General, I communicated with District Officer, North, and had the case transferred to the Central Magistracy for
convenience. The four men appeared before the Magistrate this
morning and I obtained an adjournment of seven days. Unfortunately
the most important, the operator, had had his plea of guilty
recorded by District Officer, North, so he will have to return
to District Officer, North, to be dealt with. Numbers 3 and 4
defendants were discovered to be merely the cook and boy of the
The house, I accordingly withdrew the charge against them.
second defendant is the accountant of the National Resources
Commission (1) and was caught entering the premises with a batch of messages for transmission. It appears that this Commission originally had this set at Shum Chun and installed it at Taipo on the 21st February, 1939. They are using it for the
Chinese transmitting of messages between themselves and the Government and various parts of China Chung King, Foochow, Kun Ming, etc. We have also got their private code and with its help propose to break down all the filed messages. No attempt has been made by the commission to obtain any licence for such a station, which of course would have been refused, but this morning I received a letter from them, bearing yesterday's post-mark but dated the 25th March, 1939, asking for a dealers licence. This is clearly a belated attempt at covering
themselves.
The offence is in my opinion most serious not only