CO129-540-7 Dredging of Hong Kong Harbour 26-4-1932 - 1-10-1932 — Page 57

10.

Dear Sir John,

RECEIVED 12 AUG 1932 COL. OFFICE

New Public Offices,

Great George Street,

London. SW.1

14

56

August 11th '32

Imperial Shipping Committee

In the absence of Mr. Graham on leave your letter of the 3rd inst. regarding Hong Kong Harbour has come on to me.

The Imperial Shipping Committee at its last meeting decided that I should draft a letter to the Secretary of State for circulation to the members of Committee with a view to amendment, and that I should have power to despatch the letter incorporating such of the amendments as is practicable, unless some issue of major importance were raised in which case it might be necessary to summon a meeting. What impressed the Committee and led them to favour a deepening of the whole, or, at any rate, a considerable area to 36ft was the fact that if you examined the chart,having in view the length of the larger liners, the whole area marked for dredging is really not very much for mance uvring ships into a position to go alongside the piers, more especially as we were told that there is often a considerable current running. I do not know whether Mr.Mackie's evidence alone would have been held sufficient on this point, in view of his interested position, though he was quite emphatic. But Capt. Edgell, R.N., who with Sir Leopold Savill represented the Admiralty, was for some years representative of the Admiralty at Hong Kong, and he told the Committee from his own considerable local experience that it was desirable to allow a large area of deep water for manoeuvring.

The view of the Committee, however, was that the general dues of the port should not be increased and that the policy of the Colony in that respect should not be left, as suggested by the Governor, to be determined at a subsequent date when the bill came to be footed. The Committee came to this decision on the ground that the great number of smaller ships should not be penalised for the convenience of the few larger ships, especially as the port was already not a cheap one.

I am not instructed to include the following suggestion in the draft letter, but it is obvious that since the big shipping lines, or some of them, are apparently largely interested in the Godown Company, it ought to be possible to deal with the matter by

might