CO129-414 - Governor Sir May - 1914 [10-11] — Page 31

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NO CONFIDENTIAL.

Sir,

47402

28

Regd

30

Nov

14

GOVERNMENT HOUSE.

HONGKONG. 22nd October, 1914.

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your 70/s cypher telegram of the 16th instant on the subject of the suppress-

ion of German trading in the Colony with the object of preventing

the leakage of news concerning naval and marine movements, and to

confirm my reply of the 21st instant. Paraphrases of both messages

74/5

Kotoure 2

are enclosed.

I showed my reply to His Excellency the General Officer Commanding and to the Commodore before I despatched it. They were of opinion that there is some leakage of news, that there would probably be less if no Germans were here, but that it was not possible to stop it altogether. It is worth mentioning here that news may be spread by British correspondence or British travellers. For instance the departure of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry was delayed for nearly a month owing to reasons connected with trans- port and escort. The news that they were leaving could have reached Singapore or Manila long before the regiment started.

2.

It seems to me that if the leakage of news is really serious then the only means of diminishing it would be by deporting or interning all Germans with the exception of a few representatives of each firm, and some of their clerks, to assist in the winding up transactions entered into before the war. As your telegram made no mention of deportation or interning I did not advert to either of those contingencies in my reply. But I may mention here that there are in the Colony under parole 82 merchants and employees of

HE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LEWIS HARCOURT, M.P..

&C..

10.