MX
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
HONG KONG,
that she would, if the offer were to be made in time:
if, however, the Chinese dollar were to slip very
seriously it might then be too late. I then told him
in strict confidence some thing of the investigation
which I am making: he obviously thought well of the
chances at the moment and offered to sound certain
persons in Hankow on the subject: but this I asked
him not to do.
So far as this Colony goes the main points are
as follows. Without at least some of the adjoining main-
land and all the presently leased islands Hong Kong
could not survive as a British Colony. Defensively
she would be utterly powerless: economically she would
be an enclave in Chinese territorial waters:
administratively the situation would be impossible
to the point of farce; Kowloon town already spreads a
long way over the boundary of the Colony proper,
outside of which "inter alia" lie our new military
cantonments, the R.A.F. Headquarters and the aerodrome!
But Hong Kong's individual future is not,
in my belief, the only issue; there is another which
from the Imperial point of view seems to me to be
at least equally cogent; I hope that I am not tres-
passing on Foreign Office ground in mentioning it!
It is that the trade artery between Hankow and Hong Kong
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