CO129-567-6 Tung Wah Hospitals- supplementary expenditure 22-1-1938 - 13-1-1939 — Page 2

CID.

Medical

Financial

"T"

1.

Gou

Desires

22.138.

telegraphic concurrence for vote 2

Expenditure on refugles-

in connection with expenditure

Ť which wo

already

in receipt of Imancial

assistance from the Col. Gove

The Governor asks for approval for the

payment from Hong Kong funds of nearly $10,000 to the

X

Hospital, to meet their expenditure in connection with

the care and repatriation of Chinese refugees, who

fled to Hong Kong from Japanese territory and the war

areas of China during the present conflict. The sum

involved is small, and in ordinary circumstances I

do not think there would be any objection to approval

for this expenditure. I am, however, inclined to think

that in the present circumstances it would form a

somewhat undesirable precedent. The care of Chinese

refugees is not, strictly speaking, the affair of the

Colonial Government, except in so far as it is

necessary to maintain reasonable sanitary conditions,

etc. in the Colony, and if they are to accept liability

in this way they may find themselves presented with a

somewhat embarrassing flood of applications for

financial assistance. I therefore venture to suggest

that we should

? acknowledge and say that while the S. of S.

would not normally desire to raise any objection over

the expenditure of what is comparatively a small sum,

he considers that the care and repatriation of Chinese

refugees of this kind is not strictly speaking the

responsibility of the Colonial Government, and that

he would therefore be glad to know, before approving

tnis expenditure, whether financial assistance of this

kind might not form a precedent which woula prove

somewhat embarrassing to the Colonial Government. If

however the Governor, upon consideration, does not

consider that this would be the case, then the S. of S.

is prepared to approve the reimbursement to the

Hospital of the sum proposed.

P. Rogers. ii. 38.

૩. ૫. 88,