ة
54126/43.
Dear Wilcox,
Colonial Office,
Downing Street,
S.DEC 1943
1mber, 1943.
26
I am afraid I have been some time in replying to your letter of 12th October (S.51336) regarding the assistance required from His Majesty's Government in
respect of Hong Kong finances. I note that you are willing to make the necessary advances from the Vote of Credit as a (b) service and that the advance will not bear any intcrest, and any question of repayment must await,considerati on until after the re-establishment of British administration in the Colony.
On the question of the Treasury control over the expenditure, you propose that the normal principles of control in te case of a grant aided Colony, should be followed as far as possible. That control is, I understand, based in the first place on the submission
of annual estimates. But I am afraid that the preparation of any sort of an estimate in respect of Hong Kong expenditure 'likely to be charged to the year ending 31st arch 1944 is a practical impossibility at the moment. The Hong Kong and Malayan Governments Accounts Office has been so short handed that it has made virtually no progress with the examinati on of the existi ng Hong Kong Accounts. But we h ve at last succeeded in getting some additions to the staff, which will enable one man to be detailed for this work. It will however te a few months before he will have completed his examination of those accounts so as to be in a position to analyse the expenditure on which an estimate under appropriate heads could be based. Then there is the difficulty that claims for refund of expenditure abroad in India, Chungking, Macao, Australia etc. come in at such irregular intervals that the actual charge in a year's account would bear no reference to a year's expenditure.
C.H.M. WILCOX, ESQ.
In