II.
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6. There is a young man with these qualifications, who has only recently been placed on the permanent Hong Kong Government staff (Senior Clerical and Accounting Staff), and is receiving a salary now of approximately £300. He is Mr. Clifton Large, aged 24, who speaks Cantonese with extreme fluency and has a working knowledge of Ha ka, having lived in the Colony since a child. He has an intimate knowledge of the New Territories and has had considerable experience with Chinese youth in connection with scouts, rovers, and Chinese boys' clubs. I recommend that this young man be trained as a cooperative officer and after training he be attached on pro- bation to the Secretariat for Development. If his work is satisfactory he should be confirmed in the post, but if not he should return to routine departmental work.
7.
I recommend that Mr. Clifton Large, at present in England (Baginton Fields Hostel, Coventry) be given four to six months' study leave with maintenance and travel allowances; that he be trained under the direction of Miss Margaret Digby (who has expressed approval of this suggestion). He would study the cooperative move- ment in this country and in one or more countries in Europe, as advised by Miss Digby. He would return to Hong Kong in the autumn. At some subsequent date he would be sent into South China to study the co- operative movement there. It is not considered that a visit to India would be of special value.
COMMUNAL FORESTS.
On 7th March during a discussion with Mr. J. P. Tamworth (prewar Assistant Superintendent, Hong Kong Botanical & Forestry Department), he raised the subject of communal forests and said that he was keen that they should be established in the New Territories, Hong nong. Elsewhere I make the suggestion that Mr. Tamworth should study for a further term at Oxford, review the literature concerning this subject, and in the summer vacation visit France and study there the organization and running of communal forests. On his return to Hong Kong he could then elaborate a scheme for the establishment of a communal afforestation policy for certain areas in the New Territories.
If a Cooperative Officer is to be trained for Hong Kong, as outlined in I, he can study the problems underlying communal forests so that, when the time comes for their establishment, his advice and assistance will be of value.
Miss A. M. Ruston,
Colonial office.
Copy to B. R. Wood.
l. Ashak
(G. A. C. Herklots)
11th March, 1946.