CO537-5142 — Page 146

see why the service should be expected to get worse and worse.

We are inclined to agree with you that there might not be insuperable difficulty in the

operation by a commercial company under licence of a broadcasting service designed partly for reception outside Hong Kong;

Kong; but in any case that project, as you will see from what appears below, is now dead.

To sum up, the present difficulties and future prospects of the Government broadcasting service, as represented, do not seem to us to justify the rather drastic and, in practice, easily revocable, step of handing it over to the Rediffusion Company, particularly in view of the capital assistance now available from U.K. funds.

(J.J. PASKIN )

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As a footnote I should add, I as you will indeed have seen from Foreign Office telegram No. 859 to Nanking, repeated to Hong Kong, that the Foreign Office are now not disposed to go further with the suggestion that Hong Kong should be used as a base for broadcasts aimed at China. To do this on an adequate scale would cost a lot of money and, apart from the time factor and other considerations, as the station could be easily rendered ineffective by cheaply provided jamming

/transmitters