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THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
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restrictions. Further information is given in the enclosed Terms and Conditions of supply of National Archives' leaflet.
Please note that this copy is supplied subject to the National Archives' terms and conditions and that your use of it may be subject to copyright
that it would be possible to provide for the full
would not be possible. recognition suggested above, unless satisfactory
arrangements were made for the meeting of those
liabilities.
4. I am to make it clear in the first
The
place that, without going in detail into espec-
tive responsibilities of the Government and
Bank authorities for the failure to destroy the
stocks of notes in question before the surrender
to the Japanese and for the subsequent disposal
of those stocks, the Secretary of State could in Cauner accept the view that
no eircumstances agree that the whole of the loss
resulting from the issue should be treated as a
is mima facie
responsibility of Government.
the
Nevertheless, he
thout
in all the wines.
case, he recognises the difficulties in which the Bank might well be amable would be pissed if it were left to meet the whole
of that liability itself, bearing particularly in
mind-other losses which the Bank has suffered as
a-result of the war in the Far Best. He is
accordingly willing to recommend to the Hong Kong
Government the making of arrangements by which
Government would take over, through the Exchange
Fund, a part of the loss.
5. The detailed proposals which are
suggested with this object are:-
that
(1) Legislation would be passed in Hong Kong
declaring the notes to be legal tender currency
of the Colony and further declaring that they
should in all respects be treated as if they had
been lawfully issued by the Banks should in Caesequence have legal tender status in the Colony. (2) The Hong Kong Government would issue a
Certificate of Indebtedness for the amount of the
whole of the issue in question less $16 million.
/In
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Ref:
CO 537/1369
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
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Ins
restrictions. Further Information is given in the enclosed Terms and Conditions of supply of National Archives' leaflet. Please note that this copy is supplied subject to the National Archives' terms and conditions and that your use of it may be subject to copyright