!
other Colonial Office comments to be made.
As a result of reorganisation here this
case now (for my sins) falls to me, not to
Scarlett, to deal with and, although I attended
the meeting at your office on the 12th August
when Mr. Hsu was present, I have hitherto not
been able to study the ramifications of the
various connected cases.
Lt.
First, as regards your letter of the 31st
August to Scarlett and its enclosures.
I have
made further search among our papers and, like
Scarlett before me, -vide paragraph 2 of his
letter of the 20th July I cannot find any
-
trace of our having received papers from
Hong Kong about the Chinese claims for over
£900,000 for railway materials not requisitioned,
(21/24)
but (according to the Chinese story) by Hong Kong ordinance
not allowed to be removed from the Colony without
permit and therefore ultimately lost.
It is true that a Memorandum dated 19th January
1948, prepared apparently in Jardine and Matheson's
Shanghai office, a copy of which formed the
enclosure to Nanking Embassy's letter No. S/O 95
(2/554/48) of the 19th February 1948 to the
Foreign Office refers to (a) claims totalling
£353,458. 10s. for materials actually requisitioned
and (b) claims totalling £942,449.8s. for materials
contended by the Chinese to be covered by the
so-called "blanket requisition".
It then says
the total claim is therefore £1,295,907. 18s. and
Javi
goes on "the claims were referred by the Hong
Kong Government to His Majesty's Colonial Office
in
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57