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unable to eliminate our sorrow about the problem of Hong Kong in which connection we hope you will also give your consideration." In answering this Lord Ammon said that regarding the future. of Hong Kong he was not in a position to make reply.

On the preceding day in Nanking the Chinese Foreign Office in a written report to the People's Political Council had said that "because Sino- British relations are improving and Britain has given freedom of thought to colonial peoples and changed her general colonial policy, a rational solution for the restitution of the British Crown Colony to China is not an impossible achievement. The same report had earlier stated that in regard to Macao the Portuguese Government is standing on the 1887 Sino-Portugal Treaty in which China agreed to the permanent control and occupation of Macao by Portugal and that the Chinese Government was approaching the problem by first exchanging notes with Portugal on the abolition of Portuguese extra-territorial rights in China, leaving the question of restitution for later negotiations. It is not clear whether Lord Ammon had read of this report before he made his statement to the Press

A few days later the Delegation was in Shanghai and the inhabitants of Hong Kong were astounded to read over their breakfasts on 22nd October that "High level talks are progressing on the issue of Hong Kong and he believed that the British Mission he headed should not interfere, Lord Ammon told newsmen today. tt As you can imagine this caused something of a stir, but before lunch the Governor of Hong Kong, commenting on the report had stated that "evidently Lord Ammon has been misrepresented for I have no knowledge of any talks on the issue of Hong Kong." It has bubsequently been stated in the Press that what Lord Ammon said was "The question of the

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