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I had a visit the other day,
at the suggestion of Mr. Warren Swire, from Mr. Findlay Andrew who has been employed by I.S.R.B. on work in China. He first went to China as a missionary and I gather worked in the remote western part of China where he achieved a personal position of great eminence with the local people. Owing to financial strain brought on by his wife's ill health, he then took employment with Butterfields, and early in the war I.S.R.B. invited him to take up work for them. He is going to have a prolonged holiday in Kashmir and in due course will, I understand, return to China probably in Butterfields' employment.
Sir George Moss also mentioned him to me when I saw him yesterday, and by general consent Mr. Findlay Andrew seems to have a high reputation as a person of long experience and close knowledge of Chinese thought and feelings. He told me that one of the arguments he has continuously used in China in defence of our position in Hong Kong, is that on the occasion of the cession of the Island to us & consider ble sum of money was paid to China. While he does not believe that there is any genuine feeling in Chinese political circles that we shall give up Hong Kong or that we ought (and in the case or the Cantonese there is a definite hope that we shall not), yet there is amongst the younger groups the idea that the cession of Hong Kong was part of the "unequal treaties" and it would go a long way to satisfy them if it could be shown that the traditional Chinese method of sealing a bargain, viz. by the transfer of money whether equivalent to real value or as a token was done in connection with
Hong Kong.
Mr. Andrew