35
In his minute or the 26th December,
Mr. J.B. Williams expresses agreement with this view.
I rind it therefore difficult to believe that his
endorsement of the procedure suggested in the third paragraph of your minute of the 12th December was intented to rule out a later overall approach to the Treasury,if and when we find that the burden of any of these territories is beyond its capacity to bear
without a grant from the
Treasury.
Moreover, at the time when Sir T. Lloyd was
considering this paper, he discussed the Malayan
position with me and indicated that he thought the time was approaching when we ought to be asking the Malayan Union and Singapore Governments to review these
war time financial burdens in which they had become involved (even though pending the assessment of the War Damage Claims Commission, we cannot arrive at final figures) with a view (on the basis of the best estimates they can now make) to forming some preliminary
conclusion on the question whether these burdens are
likely to be beyond their capacity to bear.
In other words, I clearly understood that it was not Sir T. Lloyd's view that we had abandoned the intention (at the appropriate time) of trying to get
grants from the Treasury for these Far Eastern
Colonies. In order therefore to crstalize the issue
I suggest, if you agree, that Mr. Palmer should now prepare a draft letter to the Governor (for Treasury concurrence on the lines that until we are in a position
to know precisely the extent of the financial burdens
in which Hong Kong has become involved as
the war, i.e. until we are in a position to estimate to
what extent it will be possible for Hong Kong to bear
these burdens without the assistance of a grant
a result of
/from