Enclosure No.3.
SIR CECIL HARCOURT'S ADDRESS OF WELCOME
1st MAY, 1946.
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Your Excellency, Today is a great occasion a very great occasion for Hong Kong. We had a great occasion on August 30 last year when we entered Hong Kong but that was only a beginning. Today, eight months later, we have progressed sufficiently to take a big step forward. Today we welcome your Excellency on your return to the Colony and we welcome also the restoration of the Civil Administration, that Civil Administration under whose acgis this great city and this flourishing port has been built up from a barren rock during the last hundred years.
To you, Sir, personally I would say this. Those of us who were privileged to form the occupational force were also fortunate enough to have come through the long six years of war comparatively unscathed. Unlike yourself we did not have to
We undergo the ordeal of being a prisoner in Japanese hands. all know the fortitude and determined courage with which you faced that ordeal and we welcome you back restored and ready to go forward from where we have left off. But your ordeal has given you at least one advantage over those of us who were fortunate enough to escape it. You are in a better position than we have been to understand not only those who were similarly prisoners of war and civilian internees but also those who had to endure the Japanese occupation of their city - nominally free but without any of the protection that the camps afforded. ordeal you have passed through will give you a great bond with the inhabitants of this Colony.
The
Whilst we here in Hong Kong have been wrestling with the immediate problems that confront the Colony, I know that your Excellency in London had been at work in conjunction with His Majesty's Government making plans for the future and in particular plans for the development of self government in Hong Kong. return, therefore, has been eagerly awaited.
Your
To your administration I would say that we of the Military Administration have done our best not only to provide first aid for the stricken territory but to lay the foundations for a full return to permanent health. And included in the word health, I mean not only the restoration of the material capacities of the port, so that as the trade of the world revives Hong Kong will resume her normal healthy function, but also we have endeavoured to lay a thoroughly sound foundation of friendship and co-operation with our neighbours in China. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I relate to your Excellency the ready response of our neighbours and the consequent friendly relationships that have becn
I would not like established which augur so well for the future.
to leave this subject without telling you with pleasure of the great co-operation we have had from the Chinese Military Authorities and the American Naval and Military Authorities in our task of facilitating the movement of Chinese armies through Hong Kong on
not an their way north to take over the liberated territories easy task to accomplish smoothly.
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And now the time has come to hand over to Your Excellency and to the Civil Administration. Your administration has not yet either the personnel or the equipment to stand entirely on its own feet and the assistance of the three services will be
This will available as heretofore until you can take over fully. be accomplished step by step. Hong Kong has a grand future before
great opportunities and, of course, consequently great res- ponsibilities. Your Administration and all the great multitude
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who look to you for guidance but who have in themselves such a fund of resourcefulness, initiative, good humour and capacity for hard work may I wish you all every success.
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