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to overprint these in red, making them legal payment to the
value of H.K. $1 for each $5 national currency, and the notes
were quickly issued and used. I do not think the internal
situation could have stood another twenty-four hours of the
small change shortage. It was touch and go.
We found, as we had anticipated, that in the heat of the
attack the only propaganda that was either possible or useful
was straight news and the more the better.
The whole effort
was accordingly concentrated on getting the news out to the
public, three times a day. The radio transmitter was knocked
out early on and we relied on the newspapers, English and
Chinese.
They did their part finely and the three chief
English papers and the five chief Chinese papers did not miss
a single issue up to 3 p.m. on Christmas Day. Some times they
were reduced to one gestetnered sheet - but they always came
out. In addition, we printed many handbills with the news
to reach the tens of thousands of people in the A.R.P. shelters,
and the Chinese Government organisations distributed them for
us.
The Kuomingtang printing press was also at our disposal
and from it we issued many leaflets, exhortatory and explanatory,
to counter fifth column rumour-mongering.
Fifth column work in the colony appeared to be well
organised. I was told, for instance, that in Kowloon water
buckets for fire prevention were discovered half-filled with
paraffin. Carefully organised rioting and looting broke out
on/