CO129-564-11 Road communications with Canton. Includes 1 photograph depicting- Bridge over Shum Chun River- China. Dated... 20-8-1937 - 18-1-1938 — Page 10

10

of plocations Oxpan

from the Secretary of State to the Governor that he should"adopt in future as accommodating an attitude as is possible towards legitimate suggestions from the Chinese authorities", I think it is undeserved

and unnecessary. It is all very well for the Foreign

Office to want to give sub rosa assistance to the Chinese, but the position is that Japan is a friendly power, and I have no doubt that the Hong Kong Government would be firmly rebuked by the Foreign Office if any action on the part of the Colonial Government could reasonably be represented by the Japanese as exceeding the bounds of neutrality in

China's favour.

Perhaps the best thing would be to ask

Mr. Ronald to come and have a talk with Sir H. Moore,

pending the receipt of a reply to No. 7, and to

discuss what really they mean by such phrases as

"every available legitimate means" (end of paragraph 3) and "within the bounds of propriety" (paragraph 4),

and "legitimate suggestions from the Chinese

authorities" (paragraph 4).

&

Sumant.

3-X1

I agree. Perhaps then we could extract some

definite consistent policy from the F.O. Only

recently schemes were under discussion for granting certificates to British ships which were not carrying arms, with a view to securing immunity from Japanese examination; apparently the benefit to shipping was held to outweigh any offence given to China. Yet here wex are urged to construct a road, which the Japanese could only regard as

Page 10Page 11

11