CO129-570-3 Sino-Japanese War- proposed refugee camp in demilitarised area of South China 1-6-1938 - 11-1-1939 — Page 2

Sino-Jut Conflict

b.l.

uating

1. Gov. tel 150

2

1.6.38

Has reed intimation from Bishop of H. K, that Christeen by diegould organised administer refugee camps if Jup. You wouldagre to dermilitarise area, for that Zurpose.

a

incl. posit treprentation

of the Japanese

force.

I have discussed this w difficult and

complicated question with Mr. Gent and Mr. Henderson

(F.0).

There are very many difficulties in

adopting any course of action for dealing with

refugees from South China should the Japanese invade

that area. In the first place, if the Japanese

Government consent to the demilitarisation of a

suitable area in China for setting up a refugee

camp, they would certainly require some assurance

that this will not be abused by the Chinese military,

and this would probably mean supervision by one or

more foreign Governments. Wherever the site may be,

it should certainly be some distance from any

strategic railway or road or it will almost

certainly be bombed, and it should certainly be kept

away from the Chinese side of the Hong Kong frontier

to prevent the possibility of stray Japanese bombs

landing in British territory.

The difficulties of setting up such a

camp in Hong Kong, where the above complications

would be avoided, are that though it is possible

that suitable land might be found somewhere in the

New Territories, the water supply of the Colony is

quite insufficient to deal with a refugee problem

on such a large scale, and Hong Kong is already

faced with a sufficiently large scale problem from

the refugees who are already there. Housing

accommodation is utterly insufficient, there have

been two epidemics, one of smallpox and the other

of cholera, anu there is a weekly total of some 30

to