CO129-566-21 Military contributions 7-5-1938 - 31-1-1939 — Page 55

Copyto Ent

ba

Compton 9.

AIR MAIL.

Dear Cowell,

Hong Phong.

AINTED FOR UBE Carta 150

COLONIAL

OFFICE

3

53

Government House,

18th June, 1938.

followering

email

am sending by this mail a despatch on the

subject of Military Contribution, in which i am proposing

the fixing of it for a period of years, as in the Straits

Settlements.

I have no doubt that the financial experts in

the War Office and the Treasury will at once suspect that

fixation is a cover for reduction and that we are trying

to get away with a lower payment than would otherwise be

due. I want to emphasize that that is not the object.

The primary consideration is to get rid of this canker

in our financial system, which destroys the logic of every

economic consideration. The only remedy is agreement upon

a periodically fixed sum, and the proposal I have put forward

is an honest effort to arrive at a figure fair to both

sides. If you do not think the despatch makes that

sufficiently clear, will you do what is possible to convince

the War Office that it is so?

urge

I do feel, however, that you should know that some

of the unofficials pressed me to use the occasion to urge

the excessive amount of the contribution and to plead for

& reduction. Among the points they mentioned were;

that

H. K. COWELL, ESQ., C.M.G.,

COLONIAL OFFICE,

DOWNING STREET,

LONDON, S.W.1.