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impenitent and very sure of his defence: we will never convict him of anything that is certain: what will happen will be that he will be allowed to fade quietly away, I imagine. I see no other course in view of the lack of evidence and the impassioned support of him by North. After enquiring round the town I took M.K. Lo, T.N. Chan, Thomas Tam and Ho Kam Tong to call on the C.-in-C. as the accepted leaders of the Chinese community. It was urgently necessary to do something, since the Admiral had made no contact with Chinese of any description since his arrival. I am not particularly proud of my choice but believe it to be the right one.
Then the awful tangle of arriving to find a
Lieut.-Gov. in office with an Ex. Co. and Leg. Co. established by virtue of a Proclamation issued the same day within a few hours of another which had declared the suspension of civil govt. Great embarrassment all round. I could not get at the currency situation until this was cleared up nor anything else. The internees did wonders some performed miracles, but by the time we arrived their small and carefully hoarded strength was waning, and the situation was beginning to catch up. Everything was made ten times more difficult and yet, seeing what they had attempted' and in part accomplished, one was proud to be a H.K. man. Patience and ingenuity and a bucket of tact on all sides finally showed a way out and
you will be interested, I think, to see Strickland's somewhat unorthodox Proclamation which turned the trick yesterday. All the internees ought to go home at once: they do themselves and their interests nothing but harm by remaining. We are getting them out as fast as the
ships go, which isn't very fast. I'm afraid that, deep down, our arrival was interpreted as a vote of no confidence in themselves.
The best thing I ever did for Hong Kong was to insist in Kandy that Man should have one of the precious seats in the plane. He has been completely invaluable, worked himself to a frazzle and gained the confidence of everyone. So far as I can see, he is the only well- briefed person in the F.E. on the subject of internees and
P.O.W.