CO537-2188 — Page 205

(5) Paragraph 8

Comment

-

4

The first sentence to read:

"I have already expressed to Sir Mark Young my deep appreciation of the exceptional care and thoroughness which he devoted to his examination of the whole question of constitutional advance in Hong Kong, and of the clear, fair-minded and competent way in which he martialled the relevant arguments and conveyed to me his conclusion on them in his despatch No.145 of the 22nd October, 1946."

Sir Mr. Young observed that it might be inferred from the original draft of this sentence that the work of devising the new constitutional proposals had been carried on by others under his general supervision, whereas, in fact, he devoted himself personally to this task. It was of course far from our intention to convey any such impression.

In addition to the above re-draft, I suggest the last sentence of this paragraph might also read:

"It is fitting that this despatch should conclude with a further acknowledgment of my deep appreciation of the careful work of Sir Mark Young, and of the assistance given him by Mr. Hazlerigg, in devising, etc., etc.,

11

(6) Amendments proposed to Sir M. Young's despatch No.145

(No.69 on 54145/4/46 Part 2) prior to publication

Sir M. Young said he had intended the last paragraph of his telegram at No.49 to mean that, whilst he would not oppose certain omissions from his despatch, he would be extremely reluctant to agree to any textual alterations. On comparing the original of this telegram (of which Sir M. Young had a copy) with the text as received, it transpired that the latter was corrupt. I have amended the file copy in accordance with Sir M. Young's original.

We explained to Sir M. Young that the amendments we had proposed to his despatch (they are given in No.62) were the based on a misunderstanding of his views, and that we appreciated his extreme reluctance to make any such amend- ments and would naturally withdraw our suggestions.

Sir M. Young then indicated that, although he would be prepared to agree to the deletions detailed in paragraph 8(I) of No.30, he could only do so on condition that some typographical device were used to indicate that the passages in question had been omitted. Mr. Seel and I felt that rather than this it would be preferable not to make any omissions at all. Sir M. Young said he would greatly prefer this course.

Apart from the deletions proposed in paragraph 8(1) of No.30, the amendments we had proposed to the despatch were concerned with

(a) the proposed differentiation between the non-British Chinese on the one hand, and Americans and non- British Europeans on the other, in the matter of residential qualifications (since this would involve racial discrimination):

/(b) the

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