My dear P.M.
28
126
ard February, 1927
I think I must ask your advice about the enclosed
personal telegram to me from the Governor of Hong Kong. As
you will see it is a bitter, almost despairing protest against
the whole of our policy in China, couched in language which he
would naturally not have used in an offici 1 telegram. Even
in his official telegrams Clementi has expressed his disagree-
ment pretty freely on more then one occasion, and both Austen
and Lampson have not unnaturally resented his criticisms. But
it is essenti-l that you should realise that Clementi is not a
crank or an unbalanced person. I specielly selected him for
Hong Kong in view of impending trouble on the double ground of
his intimate and quite exceptional kno ledge of the Chinese
and of his gener 1 ability and judgment. It is quite possibl
that be may be wrong and incapable of seeing things from the
broader point of view from which we can regard them here.
But if he takes the line he does I am convinced th t it is
not because of some person 1 defect of judgment or temper, bi
because th t is how the sitution is bound to strike anyone
the position of Governor of Hong Kong
a position both of
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