Secretariat file No. 4068/46.
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542657/7/48
COLONIAL SECRETARIAT,
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
8th June, 1948.
(5) a '47 file
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Dear Sidebotham,
Please refer to the correspondence resting with Mayle's letter of 13th April, 1948, on the subject of the Administrative Establishment.
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(6). (3).
2.
The Secretary of State's telegram No. 565 Confidential of 21st May reveals that I failed to make myself clear in the third paragraph of my letter of 3rd February, 1948, to Mayle.
3.
The position immediately prior to McWhirter's resignation was that we had asked for three ex-I.C.S. men to fill the age-gap in the service which had occurred through the war-time deaths of Balfour, Edwards and Houston and their replacement by new and inexperienced men. We said in our telegram No. 1520 of 25th September, 1947, that they would have to be additional to present establishment, a position which Mayle accepted in his letter of 7th November, 1947. You could not find three I.C.S. men for us, but sent us Barty and intimated in the Secretary of State's telegram No. 1948 of 22nd December, 1947, that another I.C.S. man was nibbling, we having indicated in our telegram No. 1771 that we would accept Melmoth as the equivalent of an I.C.S. man. That left one vacancy for an I.C.S. man.
4.
Then McWhirter resigned and I altered my letter of 3rd February to indicate that we would take Kinghorn (although he had no pre-war experience) to fill the third I.C.S. vacancy if you would get us an I.C.S. man, such as the one who was already nibbling, to fill the McWhirter vacancy. It would have been simpler perhaps to say we'd take Kinghorn to replace McWhirter, but as we expected Kinghorn to arrive somewhat earlier than he has done it would have meant he would be here before the vacancy occurred.
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The position then is that having got Kinghorn, we still require one more I.C.S. man.
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Actually there have been further developments in that Thomson is now seconded and Wynne-Jones and Megarry have gone on leave prior to retirement, so that we shall soon be bringing our plate up for another helping.
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Now I should like to go back to Mayle's most helpful letter of 7th November, 1947, I feel that I must answer the argument in his paragraph 4 that "time for language study does not count". While this is no doubt true in those Colonies where the newly appointed officer can and does learn his language and do a job of work at the same time, it is untrue of Hong Kong, where the student of Cantonese has to be given two years free of all duty. (Malaya has the same problem, but only a fraction of their cadets learn a Chinese dialect whereas all of ours must). the war our language students lived in Canton or Macao, and were indeed prohibited from coming to Hong Kong unless with permission, or for examination. This being so, the two years' absence on language study must come into the calculation of leave reserve; the only other solution being that Unpassed Cadets on language study should not count against the establishment at all.
Before
J. B. Sidebotham, Esq., C.M.G.,
Colonial Office,
The Church House,
Great Smith Street,
London, S.W.1.
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