CO537-2192 — Page 99

5.

Q.11.

A.

Q.12.

A.

Q.13.

Japan and had commenced and carried on a new publication in Canton, they have not been included in any Traitors' List, nor has any request been made for their surrender for trial.

On the facts presented by you, it would appear that you suggest that the request for your surrender is not based on a genuine belief that you are "a cultural traitor". Do you suggest that this particular demand has an ulterior motive?

I do so suggest this and upon facts which I can prove, book chapter and verse. Before the Traitors' list, which included my name was published, I had been variously approached by several parties, all making some preposterous demands, and I was told that if I did not accede to these demands, my name would appear in the next Traitor's list. My refusal to accede to blackmail led to my being named "traitor" as threatened. Simultaneously with these demands, a press campaign had been carrying on clamouring for my punishment as a cultural traitor, but this was really the work of these coming within one of the following classes:-

(1) (2)

(3)

persons, with sinister motives of self interests. professionals, jealous of the popularity and influence of the Wah Kiu Yat Po.

those who would blindly take a hand in almost anything mischievous.

I do say that this demand is not a genuine one having as its real object the punishment of a collaborator but constitutes the culminating point of a series of blackmailing attempts to obtain control of the Wah Kiu Yat Po and of its policy and that the true basis of the request for surrender is my firm refusal to play party politics and to insist upon a free editorial policy.

Are you a British subject?

Yes, I am. I am a British subject born in Hong Kong and want to stress as a preliminary point that I do not come within the terms of the Chinese Collaborators (Surrender) Ordinance by reason of the definition of "Chinese national" in Section 2. I produce Statutory Declarations of Shum Hip Tong and Sim Tai Wan proving my birth on the 6th July, 1897, at No.5 Pak Tsz Lane, 2nd floor, Gage Street in Hong Kong. Such proof is also corroborated by the fact that my father, at the time of my birth, had been employed in Hong Kong for many years before my birth and had been residing here with my mother and members of my family for the same number of years. The fact that I was from a very young age attending school in Hong Kong at the Ellis Kadoorie School is again corroborative to a certain extent of my Hong Kong birth.

Do you desire that any witnesses he heard on any of the above points?

Yes, the following:-

Shum Hip Tong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Wah Kiu Yat Fo;

A.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Au Chuen Kee, newspaper distributor.

Ho Siew-um, my secretary, family friend and business association;

Q.14.

A.

Do you wish to direct the attention of the Governor-in-Council to any other article of the wah Kiu Yat Po?

In spite of Japanese control, discreet and conscientious journa- lism on the part of the editorial staff of the Wah Kiu Yat Po,