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same generosity with which it responded to our first appeal. We are keeping carefully-audited accounts of all expenditure and shall send the same to the Irish Red Cross as soon as possible after the end of hostilites. It is impossible to do so at present. Only the happy circumstances that urgent missionery business enabled me to leave Hongkong for a short visit to the neutral port of Macao enables me to send this report and it has to be couched in very general terms because it was impossible for me to bring any documents with me from Hongkong.
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(f)DIFFICULTIS IN GETTING IRISH OUT OF CIVILIAN CONCENTRATION CALP.
"here are two difficulties of getting Irish out of the Civilian Concentration Camp. The first is that, like all internees, they have lost everything, the houses having been looted immediately they were interned. We would therefore have to take on their full support as well as finding places for them to live. We have not the means for that. Secondly the Nipponese authorities have now become stricter. I have been trying for months to get out one Donegal man whose health has been effected. As a rule these people either have now passport or their passports are British or Hon kong Passports. Many had been out here before 1922 (date of issue of Irish passports); many came out with Free State passports and when they ran out they had to get Hongkong passports
here. But far the greater number simply have had their passports looted with all their other belongings. It is therefore, difficult to press the matter and undesirable to take up the general question until we are in a position to support all the 139 Irish if they are let out..
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g) IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPILE LISTS OF IRISH NATIONALS IN H.K. BUT ENQUIRIES
ABOUT INDI IDUALS CAN E MADE.
"It had sometimes been suggested we should send to Ireland a complete list of Irish nationals with details about each. We have not done this because we feel there would be so many omissions in any list we could compile that it would cause more anxiety than consolation. Many of the civilians have left Hongkong; many are prisoners-of-war, having been in the Local Volunteer force, and we cannot get their names. Even the Red Cross has failed to conmlete a list of deal, woundel and missing. For these reasons even the parents of local boys are in many cases still without information of their children and the anguish they suffered make us hesitate to draw up any list unless or until we can be sure that we can make it fairly complete. We are prepared to male
enquiries about individuals and have already assisted the Red Cross to trade individuals : hen enquiries have come about particular persons. But that is all that can be usefully done at the moment..
/Ih)