116
SECRET
DEFENCE SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
Rangoon, the 25th June, 1938.
D. 0. No. 46 D(C) 38, Part II.
My dear Monteath,
Mr. Chen, the representative of the Central
Chinese Government, at present in Rangoon with a mission
to arrange for the transport of munitions through Burma
(as mentioned in the Hon'ble Counsellor's D.0.letter
No.53 D(C) 38, dated the 17th June, 1938) has enquired if
military aircraft for China can be assembled in Rangoon and
thence flown to China. He has pointed out that some parts
of the larger types of craft cannot be carried by rail in
Burma owing to the necessary restrictions on the size of
articles which can be so carried: and he has mentioned a
case in Hongkong where extensive alterations had to be made
to railway signals and portions of the track in order to
enable parts of machines to be carried by train from Hongkong
to Kowloon.
2.
Mr. Chen, as far as can be ascertained, is without
definite information as to the legal aspects of the case, his
only contribution being a rather vague statement that the
Attorney-General, Hongkong, had stated that if any particular
aircraft were represented as being commercial and not
military machines, no objections would exist to their
assemblage, and an equally vague suggestion that aircraft
might be considered to be on the same footing as warships.
He admitted that what he had definitely in mind was the
assemblage of machines intended for use for the purposes of
war, but he wished to know whether, in the event of all
military appliances being stripped from such machines,
could be any objection to their being assembled in Burma.
As there is no state of war formally in existence
3.
there
between/
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