CO537-6564 — Page 57

* Copy

PR 121/1

Ref: 8074/8/50

CONFIDENTIAL

Commissioner General for the U.K. in South East Asia, Singapore.

29th May, 1950.

Dear Ralph,

Since Leslie Smith has been getting busy in Hong Kong, we have had from him a deman for publications far greater than from any of our posts before.

COT

2. We are doing our best to meet this demand, but, having regard to our total budget, I do not feel we can send him everything he asks for: one single request, for example - for 24,000 copies of each of the two parts of "Behind the Iron Curtain" in Chinese - would cost us £5,000. I have proposed to Smith that he try to persuade a Hong Kong pub- lisher to undertake publication of this booklet as a commercial venture, as was done here

3. I have put the position to Leslie Smith in this way: that I feel we must accept that the Overseas Chinese in South East Asia are on the whole a more important target for us than the Chinese in Hong Kong; so that, from a Regional point of view, we would not be justified in giving him quite all the supplies he wants.

40 But I do not want to damp his ardour. I have put in hand at once the printing of approximately half his immediate requests - excluding the order for "Behind the Iron Curtain" which I think we can manage without too great a financial drain.

5.

I have also suggested to Smith that the Hong Kong Government might perhaps consider buying some part of the publications he has asked us to supply; or arranging for reprinting in Hong Kong.

6. I am telling you of this suggestion now, first, in case news of it reach you by way of the Colonial Office: it is just possible that the Hong Kong Government may not take kindly to our views on the relative importance of South East Asian and Hong Kong Chinese; and second, to know whether you agree with my views given in paragraph 3 above.

F.R.H. Murray, Esq.

Information Research Department,

Foreign Office,

S.W.1.

Yours ever

(signed)

John Rayner