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4.
Most of the next morning and the early
afternoon was occupied by paying and receiving calls on
and from the three Chinese officials above mentioned, the Mayor kindly giving a large luncheon party in my honour. Later I visited other parts of the city, including the San Yat Sen University where the Chancellor, Mr. Chou
Lou introduced me to his staff and gave me tea. That
evening Mr. Blunt was good enough to give a dinner party for my wife and myself. At both the luncheon and dinner parties the healths of His Majesty the King and the President of the Chinese Republic were drunk but no speeches were made. All arrangements for the visit were made by Mr. Blunt and his staff and were exactly calculated to meet our convenience. We have every reason to be most grateful to them.
5. My conversations with leading Chinese officials consisted principally of expressions of gratitude for
the shelter given in Hong Kong to Chinese refugees and for the general sympathy which, as is well known, the people of this Colony feel for China, and, secondly, of asseverations of the essential interdependence of Hong Kong and Canton and the importance of continued cooperation between them after the war. I trust that these will subsequently be borne out by facts. But in the course of my call on him General Wu Te-chen, after speaking of the possibility of a Japanese invasion of Kwangtung, suggested that British and Chinese military officers might confer upon a common defence plan of the Colony's land frontier with China presumably against attack by a Japanese force. I replied that the discussion of such matters lay entirely outside my competence and that if it was to be raised at all it
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