CO129-571-15 Sino-Japanese War- manufacture and import of aircraft to China 18-1-1938 - 5-1-1939 — Page 184

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Enclosure 1.2.

for testing and ultimate despatch of assembled aeroplanes.

I attach a plan shewing the Kai Tak aerodrome, the Royal

Air Force buildings, an area marked A within which Mr.

Pawley first intended to apply for a site and a plot of

land marked B which is that now applied for.

3. The project has been referred to the local

Director of Air Services, the British Trade Commissioner

and the General Officer Commanding the British Troops in

China for their comments: I also took the opportunity of

the visit of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Edward

Ellington, G.C.B., C.M.G., C.B.E., to ascertain his views.

4.

Commander Hole, the Director of Air Services, considered that in principle the project was worthy of

encouragement.

points:-

The British Trade Commissioner raised several

(1) in the first place he observed that as Mr. Pawley represents the Curtis Wright Companies it is probable that the Company would interest itself in American machines:

against this Mr. Stanley Dodwell has assured me that the Company would not be tied to any particular company or to American Companies in general but would undertake the assembly of any make of aeroplane. Mr. Dodwell is a

member of the Legislative Council and a man of business here of the highest reputation.

(2) He thought that British relations with Japan and/or China might be injured according to whether the Company sold exclusively to China or impartially to China and Japan. Mr. Dodwell told me that the latter would be the Company's policy and I took the opportunity to warn him that were the erection of this factory to be authorised the assembling of military planes would not be permitted while