CO129-448 - Governor Sir May - 1918 [4-6] — Page 280

No

Ne 140.

REC

Rea" || JUL 18]

GOVERNMENT HOUSE.

HONGKONG. 16th. May, 1918.

279

sir.

My attention has been drawn to the state- -ments contained in the reference to Hongkong in Volume XIV Part 173 of The Times "History and Encyclopaedia of the War", published in the "Hongkong Daily Press" Newspaper of the 17th. April, and in justice to the good name of Hongkong it is in- -cumbent on me to make the following comments on these mis- -chievous allegations. A copy of the passage is appended for convenience of reference:-

(a).

There is not one tittle of evidence that

the interned prisoners "carried on intrigues with the Chinese".

(b).

Nor is there m iota of evidence "that

German agents were using the Crow Colony as a centre for a

Bolo propaganda of scurrilous falsehood".

(0).

Again there is no evidence whatever that "German agents used the Colony as a base for creating sedition in India".

(a).

The liquidation of the Deutsch Asiatische Bank and other German businesses was entrusted to the Hong- -kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and other British Commercial Firms in the Colony. It was not carried out by the Government. The business was tedious owing, inter alia, to the fact that vessels carrying cargoes belonging to the firms in

question

HE RIGHT HONOURABLE

WALTER LONG, M.P.,

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