CO537-3705 — Page 159

c.ô.

REGISTERED No.

DRAFT AND RECORD Coeɣlonial Office,

Church House,

LETTER

54145/16/4BSENT

66

Great Smith Street,

3.1.1.

DATE

22nd January, 1948.

Dear Scarlett,

DRAFT

그래

MR. Mayle

MR...

MR.

ENCLOSURES

Hong Kong Kowloon Evictions

we have now considered the draft note to the

63) Chinese Ambassador which reached me yesterday morning.

Draft marked 'E'

(65)

FURTHER ACTION

The only comments we have of substance are on the penultimate paragraph. De appreciate that this paragraph has been included to meet our suggestions, but it does not, in our view, go quite far enough in the direction of supporting the decision and action of the Hong Kong Goverment. Indeed, with the manuscript aqdition, it is possibly open to the implication that our support is limited to the action taken to maintain law and order. It seems to us to be very desirable to make it quite clear to the Chinese Government that H.G. do support the Hong Kong Government throughout in this matter, and we would, therefore, like to suggest that the penultimate paragraph of the draft should be revised on the lines of the enclosed re-draft.

In the last paragraph of the draft we suggest that the words "they are placed before the public in China" should be substituted for the words "the matter is looked at in the proper light in China". It seems Teasonable to make this specific request, since the distortion of the facts seems to be responsible for the demonstrations of anti-British feeling in China.

There are also one or two minor amendments we should like to suggest, namely

/(8).

To

P..S.Y. SCARLETT, £31.

[4556B) Wt. 26930/440 50m. 9/45 C.N.Ld. 748