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COPY.
CONFIDENTIAL.
Endlosure 1. in ho
Hongkong General Chamber of CommGT69.
181
Hongkong, 8th. January, 1917.
SAT,
I am directed to acknowledge your letter of 20th. November last covering copy of a deppatch received from the Secretary of State for the Colonies regarding the Commercial
and Industrial Poltoy to be adopted throughout the Empire after
the war,
and asking for a statement of this Chamber's viewe
thereon.
}
the subject is so wide and the inferest of different parts of the Empire so varied that in this, their reply, my Committee cam only venture to deal with the subject on broad lines and with the interests of this Colony principally
in their minds,
In the first place it seems desirable to state that in giving consideration to any policy relating to the progress of Commerce and Industry after the war, due regard must also be given to the maintenance as far as practicable of Trade and Industry already established in this far Eastern field as the result of many years effort: that is as far as is compatible with the prosecution of the War, steps should not be taken to weaken the Empire's present hold on Eastern Commerce, Finance and Industry, and for this reason it is essential, in the interests of the Empire, to maintain to and from and in the East a due proportion of shipping to maintain supplies between the different points of the Empire and the East; also such supply of material as may be required for Britisk industries; and to reserve on the spot the necessary number of men of experience in Eastern trade and peoples.
As you are aware there was a Conference under the auspices of the British Imperial Council of Commerce in London La June of last year, and at that Conference Mr. O. H. Rose, a forner Mengber of the Legislative Council of this Colony, represented the Hongkong Chamber of Commerce. The leading
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