CO129-514-4 Repayment of excess military contributions advanced by Hong Kong 9-1-1929 - 10-1-1930 — Page 40

CONFIDENTIAL(2).

Sir,

62

39

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,

HONGKONG. 12th April, 1929.

رما

8

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt

of your despatch No.17 of the 23rd of January, 1929,

regarding the repayment to this Government of the amounts

of the Military Contribution overpaid in the years 1917-18

and 1918-19.

2.

The calculations presented by the War Office

in an enclosure to your despatch have now been examined; and I consider that they are open to objection both on the score

of the method of calculation and on the score of the

assumption that repayment should now be made in dollars, a principle with which I have already in my telegram of 28th

January specified my disagreement.

3.

With regard to the method of calculation,

this is open to objection on the ground that the monthly rates of exchange noted are those fixed by the Military

Authorities for their own use and vary somewhat from those

used by this Government. Again the total annual Military expenditure has simply been divided into twelve equal monthly instalments and converted into dollars at the rate of

exchange fixed for each of the twelve months. It is obvious that the Military expenditure could not have been identical

Copy

WD.

!? *

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LIEUTENANT COLONEL L.C.M.S. AMERY, M.P.,

&C.,

&C.,

&c.

in

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