97
34
55413
48
5 5u12/1/18]
55-413/1/48
se qc
Sour/1/58
4. As regards "Siamese Free Rice" included in item
A (i) above, I would refer to my savingram No. 182 of
9th August, 1948 enclosing a memorandum on this subject,
and to your reply No. 92 of 1st Nov. 1948. Since that
correspondence took place, further consideration has been
given to this problem which for convenience is summarised
below, with the addition of certain aspects which now
appear to be relevant. Shortly after the surrender of
Thailand, supplies of rice estimated to be worth £1,707,600
were obtained from that territory without payment and
were shipped to India, Malaya, Hong Kong, Borneo
territories, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The amount
shipped to Hong Kong was worth £516,700. It is assumed
that the rice was sold and presumably the proceeds of
sale in Hong Kong are included in the total of items
C (a) and (b) of para. 3 above, subject to any further
information you may be able to give as a result of the
enquiry at the end of that paragraph. On the
been
assumption that the proceeds had to be paid over to
H.M.G., it was stated in my savingram of 9th August 1948,
aut on the basis of actual receipts, but that the proceeds should be distributed in the same
proportions as the I.E.F.C. allocation of rice from S.E. Asia
sources to the countries concerned.
It would obviously not credited will
be fair that each territory should be put the value of the
Siamese rice actually received by that territory, since the
distribution amongst the above territories was purely a
matter of convenience at the time and was not on the basis
of any entitlement of each territory to food supplies at that
time, or on the basis of entitlement to shares of
reparations from Thailand. On the basis of I.E.F.C.
allocations, 10.6% was considered to represent Hong Kong's
notional share of £1,707,600, or £181,000.
5.
In the light of further consideration which has since
been given to this problem I now feel, however, that it can
reasonably be contended that the proceeds of sale during the
period of the British Military Administration should
/legitimately