94001/28/1/49 H.K.
Great Smith Street,
S.W.1.
38
4th July, 1949.
You will be receiving by this mail a formal despatch enclosing copies of the Instructions defining certain aspects of your relationship with the Commander, British Forces, Hong Kong, and a. advance copy of the Directive which is being issued to General Festing in that capacity.
I should like to take this opportunity of expressing to you, on behalf not only of myself, but also of my colleagues in the Government here, our very great appreciation of your readiness to fall in with the new arrangements which are embodied in these documents.
I am quite confident that you will find
General Festing a most co-operative and agreeable colleague who, in the course of his earlier service in Hong Kong has already acquired & familiarity with and a sympathetic appreciation of the position of Hong Kong and of the interests of the local population both British and Chinese.
Even though it may be superfluous, I should also like to take this opportunity of saying how sympathetically we in London are following the fortunes of Hong Kong in the anxious times through which you are passing and the possibly even more anxious times which may lie ahead. I should also like once again to tell you how conscious I am of the burden of responsibilities and anxiety which has rested and will continue to rest on your shoulders, and to express my satisfaction that, in these difficult times, the civil administration of Hong Kong is in such competent hands.
(sgd) A. CREECH JONES.
Sir Alexander Grantham, K.C.M.G.