CO537-2187 — Page 89

C.O.

123

DRAFT AND RECORD COPYColonial Office,

REGISTERED No.

Ansd (125

LETTER SENT

54145/47

Downing Street,

S..1.

26th ADATESt, 1947

DRAFT

MR. Mayle

MR.

MR.

To

ENCLOSURES

FURTHER ACTION

SECRET

(119)

Dear Kitson,

I am afraid I have been rather a long time in thanking you for sending me a copy of your letter to Sir Ralph Stevenson of the 17th July, (F 9158/376/0) on the subject of Macao and Hong Kong

I notice that Lamb says in his letter to you of the 8th of July (of which you also sent me a copy) that a copy of the Ambassador's letter to you of the 24th of June was being sent to MacDougall. I should like, if you see no objection, to send the latter a copy of your reply to the Ambassador's letter, dated the 17th July, referred to in the preceding paragraph. I am however in some difficulty because two of the passages in your letter might, I feel, give rise to some misunderstanding, and also because we in the Colonial Office have not had an opportunity of considering the question of consultation with the Portuguese on the subject of Hong Kong and Macao.

The first passage is in paragraph 2 of your letter where you say that your Secretary of State recently persuaded Mr. Creech-Jones to agree to defer for the present the "reassuring statement" which the Colonial Office have been wanting to make about Hong Kong, which we (that is the Foreign Office) felt would seem gratuitously provocative to the Chinese at a time when they are in no

G.V. KITSON, ESQ. C. B. M.

position

{4264A] Wt. 11439/415 50m. 5/45 C.N.Ld. 748