2.
He said he
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gunboats were not arranged through London.
could not understand difficulties made by Hong Kong Government. Lacao Government (this replies to last paragraph of your telegram under reference) had agreed to shuttle service of military transports on a more or less regular schedule every five days without any condition either precedent or reciprocal. If Hong Kong Government still refused agreement, Japanese would make other arrangements but would feel ill-will towards Hong Kong. They would not accept concession with any reciprocal condition attached. Asked whether they would "trade" passenger ship against transport ship for ship he
Best return for which we replied certainly not, repeat not. could possibly hope would be [? roughly] two transports to one passenger ship. Japanese naval and military authorities considered five to one in their favour a fair ratio in view of conventional numbers of our respective ships and prospective
passen ers concerned.
6.
My Japanese colleague made further bitter cominents but I expect to see him tomorrow and will telegraph thereupon
if necessary.
Repeated to Commander-in-Chief telegram No. 165 (please pass to Senior Naval (fficer West River as my telegram No. 18) Foreign Office tele ram No. 170, Embassy Shanghai telegram
No. 326, Tokyo telegram No. 90.
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