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orders that it was to be made up to date at once.
Apparently this had not been done when the crash
came nor was the committee set up in time. After
the waste of a week or so during which the
necessary preliminaries might have been carried
out, the local Government issued the order for
complsory evacuation and by then there were only
some five days in which the evacuees could make
their arrangements to get away. In the absence
of the Exempting Committee various officials
appeared to have taken upon themselves the authority
to exempt. One of the cases which raised the
greatest indignation, especially in the department
concerned where the order of evacuation was rigorously
put into force among the junior ranks, was that of
the late Commissioner of Police, King. It appears
that King exempted his wife, both his daughters
and his mother-in-law on the ground, presumably,
that their presence was necessary for defence
purposes. When he retired two or three months later
the whole lot left with him.
One instance of harsh treatment told to me
was that a small boy who was ill in Kowloon Hospital
but whose parents could not get an order allowing
him to wait for a later ship. He was carried aboard
on a stretcher and of course, was seen by very many
people. Another man claims that his wife died as a
result of her hasty evacuation while in ill heal th.
The frequently-made demand that the
evacua tion should now be altered from the compulsory
to the voluntary basis is due largely to the decision
taken by the Secretary of State last November and
transmitted in his telegram 642. 'That, it is said,