Governor tells us that he is accepting this advice. So we are all agreed.
2. (14) was agreed with the Foreign Office (Mr. Tomlinson) before issue, but unfortunately by a slip was not copied to the Foreign Office after issue. Mr. Scarlett had apparently not heard of it when he wrote (20). He had not seen (19) because it had not yet come in. I have had both (14) and (19) copied to him.
3. (20), which purports to base itself on the Ambassador's advice, in fact ends up with something quite different viz., don't take action against the New China News Agency under press legislation for printing a specific subversive article,
but take action against it for its non-journalistic activities. The last two sentences of (20) however convey What I think is really in Mr. Scarlett's mind viz. don't be in a hurry to take action at all. Had Mr. Scarlett seen (14) and (19) I don't think he would have bothered to write as he did.
4. I had drafted the above when Mr. Tomlinson came over for our meeting today. I put the gist of the above to him and said that, unless the Foreign Office felt very strongly in the matter, we should not be keen to follow up our earlier advice to the Governor, which he has accepted, with some quite different advice now.
Mr. Tomlinson has just telephoned me. He has discussed with Mr. Scarlett who says "we may tear up" (20).
? Put by.
THIS IS A COPY
THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN RETAINED
IN THE DEPARTMENT UNDER
SECTION 3 (4) OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS ACT 1958
J. Wallan
5.7.49.
23 24
Press Estat
at
New york sing
Ganjou Herald
Munthoni Guadian
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