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refugees flocked into the Colony and
had to be accommodated in large
improvised refugee camps (at the
Colony's expense, of course); and the
difficulties of the situation were
still further increased by the entry
of about one thousand Chinese soldiers
into the Colonial territory when
fighting broke out on the border in
November.
You will readily appreciate
that the Colonial Government were not
at all anxious to have to bear the extra
burden of expense and responsibility
entailed by the retention of these men,
and would have welcomed any sound scheme
for getting rid of them. For obvious
reasons they could not be handed over to
the Japanese in the hope that they would
be allowed to return in contingents to
Canton