53838/59/43
Colonial office,
Downing Street,
S.P.1.
14
13
14 August, 1943.
Dear Wilcox,
We would like to put up for your consideration a difficult position into which we have been projected by an earlier commitment of the Hong Kong Government.
2.
As a result of the extension of the Sino-Japanese war to South China, large numbers of refugees flocked from the mainland of China into Hong Kong, and this factor was responsible for an increase in the number of lepers far beyond the capacity of the available hospitals in the Colony. The Government thereupon decided to transfer the "non-resident" lepers of Chinese nationality to certain asylums in China Proper, which had agreed to accept them, and at the same time to guarantee annual grants for their maintenance.
3.
200 of these lepers were accepted in April 1941 by the Maryknoll Mission, an American Catholic organisation which has a leper asylum at Ngai wun, at the entrance to one
of the channels of the West River below "acao and presumably within the area now under Japanese control, and the Hong Kong Government agreed to pay $6.00 per head per month for their upkeep. The Embassy at Chungking was authorised some months ago to continue this from Hong Kong funds.
4.
The Ambassador, however, has now telegraphed a recomendation, copy of which is enclosed, that if the Hong Kong Government has a moral obligation for the full maintenance of these lepers (now 196 in number), the monthly allowance should be increased to Chinese $750.00 (HK$150.00) per head per month, which is the present
estimated cost of maintenance owing to the serious deterioration in the currency situation.
C.H.M. WILCOX, ESW.
/5.