CO537-(1262-1649) — Page 114

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Ref.:

CO 537/1369 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

000 79

All loktors to be addressed to the Ranks

and not le

individual officers

TELEGRAPHIC ADDRESS

PARADISE,STOCK.LONDON"

THE MERCANTILE BANK OF INDIA, LIMITED.

15. Gracechurch Street,

London 26.3.

43

78

TELEPHONE NO MANSION HOUSE 0371-6

IN REPLY PLEASE QUOTE

REF.

JBC/LG.

Dear Caine,

29th April, 1946.

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Ref.:

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

CO 537/1369

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

1.

HONG

KONG.

At a Meeting in your office on the 5th inst. you were good enough to tell cockburn and myself the general lines of a settlement you had come to with the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation in regard to such portion of their "duress notes" as may eventually be found to have been issued by the Japanese otherwise than in discharge of an equivalent liability of that Bank. You explained that it was a term of the settlement that the Hongkong Bank would repay other Banks' pre-occupation deposits with them to the extent that such funds had not been applied in discharging liabilities of the depositor bank. asked the Chartered Bank and The Mercantile Bank if they would submit figures showing to what extent each had "duress notes" outstanding in the hands of the public which had been issued

I otherwise than in discharge of an equivalent liability. pointed out that it would first be necessary to settle the order of priority of the various funds from which liabilities would be deemed to have been discharged. You indicated that priority should be:-

1st. Bank's pre-occupation cash balance.

2nd. Unissued and "duress notes" which being of

the same character should be treated as one.

3rd. Bank's pre-occupation credit balance with the

Hongkong Bank.

4th. Proceeds of Bank's Assets realised by the

2.

Liquidator.

You

We have attempted to produce a statement of this Bank's position on the lines suggested by you but it

has proved impossible to draw up any satisfactory form of

Contnd:-

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