COPY.
2894/52/10)
50/32807/30817
Dear Randall,
League of Nations,
Geneva, 20th March, 1939.
I am sorry to have to trouble you again with
questions concerning our base in China.
You will remember that for more than a year our
office and base were installed at Hong Kong, and that the
Foreign Office
-
by its letter No. F.2887/120/10 of 22nd
March, 1938, kindly informed us that the Cable and
Wireless Limited had agreed to accord the privilege of
government rates to telegrams sent from Hong Kong on League
of Nations' business. Telegraphic instructions in this
sense were at that time sent by Mr. Ormsby Gore to the
Governor of Hong Kong.
This arrangement worked most satisfactorily and
resulted in considerable saving of our telegraphic expenses.
In December of last year, when our base was moved
to Hanoi, I approached the French Government with a view to
obtaining similar telegraphic facilities in Indo-China.
Owing to internal commercial agreements and through no lack
of good-will on the part of the French authorities, we were
unable to obtain any reduction in the cost of cables from Indo-China to Geneva, the only advantage secured being for
wireless telegrams from Hanoi to Hong Kong or the interior of
China. Such a situation naturally involves in our limited
budget heavy expenditure for telegrams to Geneva, which are
often long and frequent.
-
-
The object of my letter is to ask whether you would
be willing to ask the Colonial Office to maintain the privileged
A.W.G. RANDALL, Esq., 0.B.E.,
Foreign Office,
LONDON, S.W.1.
Government