CO537-4801 — Page 49

الهند تیم

registered Defence

6.

Extracts from Report by Minusta

Defence

в

of

visit to

to Hong Kong, June 1944

Registration of the Population.

As indicated in the Governor's signal No. 15 already referred to registration of the population was one of the obvious military security steps about which he was apprehensive in relation to the peculiar circumstances of Hong Kong. Once on the spot I was able to appreciate much better the kind of pressures, and conflicting influences, to which the local authorities are subject. That there is much local anxiety about security was evident at the Press Conference which I held, and fron meny enquiries made to me by prominent citizens. We had direct evidence of the pull the other way in Nanking telegram 789 of 7th June together with the Shanghai telegrams to which it relates, in which it appeared that the British Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, holding the view that Hong Kong could be rendered untenable by means of a boycott and internal unrest, represented that the sending of re-inforcements to the Colony had been given undesirable publicity of a defiant and provocative nature. This was a good example of pressure from commercial interests

not in Hong Kong alone but on the China Coast generally, which the Governor of the Colony cannot ignore.

7.

I had, however, had the advantage on the journey from Singapore to Hong Kong, of being able to read Sir Henry Gurney's despatch No. 5 of 30th May, setting out the experience gained in operations in Malaya, for the guidance of other Colonial Governments. An extract from this despatch on the subject of registration is at Annex III. What Sir Henry Gurney had to say strengthened me in the view. that an improvement in internal security in Hong Kong would only be obtained by introducing registration at once as a preliminary step to instituting, at whatever date proved to be necessary, a comprehensive control of immigration. Such control could only be introduced when registration had been completed, or at least well advanced. The Governor was prepared to go ahead with registration but warned me that not more than 250,000 cases could be dealt with in a month, and that it would therefore require five months to break the back of the problem by registering 1,250,000; it would be eight months before the whole of Hong Kong's 2,000,000 people could be registered. In this context I had a discussion with the Commissioner of Police who considered that it would be virtually impossible to improve on this estimate of time since registration must involve photographing and thumb printing every individual. American apparatus is required, which I think might have been ordered earlier, but the Governor promised to see this was ordered at once. I still think stops should be taken to speed up the tempo of registration and I pressed this on the Governor just before leaving.

25.

Summary of Mattors Requiring Action.

(a) A determined effort should bo mado

to speed up the process of registration above the estimated 250,000 a month (para, 8);

(b)

thero should be no delay in getting the necessary American couipment to onable registration to go ahead - (para. 8);

#

: