Missions and Governors in November 1948.
The essence of the proposal is that the power of Hong Kong's exist- ing domestic medium-wave broadcasting service in Chinese and English should be increased and its programme output appropriately expanded and adapted. The Commissioner-General's conference endorsed this plan.
5.
This increase in power could most quickly be made by converting for medium-wave transmission and transferring to Hong Kong several 7 Kilowatt short-wave transmitters belonging to the Foreign Office in Singapore. Their power, if favourably sited, should be enough to reach Canton and a corresponding distance in other directions, but would not be too high to support the fiction that the purpose of their installation is to make the local service fully effective within the Colony. The present power of the local service is 2 Kilowatts
and, as the Secretary of State for the Colonies admitted in reply to a question in the House on 16th February, it is not adequately received through- out the New Territories. That it should be reason-
ably possible to maintain officially that the proposed increase in power is for domestic purposes is held to be of importance not only by the Foreign Office for political reasons, but also by the General Post Office since an international agreement, to which the United Kingdom is a party, prescribes that the power of a medium-wave service shall not be greater than is necessary to give the country concerned a reasonably effective domestic service,
6
The
It was folt that it would be impracticable to attempt to persuade the Hong Kong Government to devote funds to this development; morcover, the consequent publicity, if the Hong Kong Government wore to contribute, might be embarrassing. proposal has therefore been put to the Hong Kong Government on the assumption that the development would be undertaken as unobtrusively as possible on United Kingdom funds which the Foreign Office has indicated that it is prepared to provide.
The Hong Kong Government has responded favourably to the proposal, but its provisional estimates appeared to be based on too elaborate an interpretation of the requirements. It has also suggested that the transmitters should be sited in the north of the New Territories, a procedure slower and more costly than had been envisaged, and, in an omergency, unsafe. It has therefore been necessary to refer back to Hong Kong for revised proposals and estimates.
8.
Pressure in the House has recently led the Prime Minister (Hansard, 5th May. Col.1353) and the Secretary of State for the Colonics (Hansard, 4th May Col.1002) to state that consultation is in progress about an increase in the power of the Hong Kong broadcasting service. Both have done so in guarded terms. But as their statements wore related
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