CO129-483 - Others & Individuals - 1923 — Page 204

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Digate. Th

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BIL

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in South China.

I have always taken the view, in which Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has concurred, that it is not only your right but your duty to represent to His Majesty's Government and to Peking Legation manner in which policy pursued is likely to affect Hong Kong interests, and on these lines I have done my best to meet the representations which have been made. find it impossible to deny that you have outstepped the

But I

limits of this function in the procedure to which Secre- tary of State for Foreign Affairs now takes exception and have made it difficult for me to defend your action. I must therefore ask you to be careful to remember that the Chinese policy of His Majesty's Government must be dictated by more general and even more important con- siderations than the interests of the Colony under your Government, and that your duty is confined to putting the case for Hong Kong and does not cover any positive action in conflict with thet policy, of the nature of which you are kept informed. I should find great difficulty in resisting any future representations of the kind which I have received unless in future you are ruled by this principle.

This is secret and strictly personal.

DEVONSHIRE.