CO129-589-18 Complaints against evacuation scheme 23-11-1940 - 24-10-1941 — Page 52

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52.

IN THE MATTER of the EMERGENCY REGULATIONS 1938/1940

TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR IN COUNCIL.

THE HUMBIE PETITION of the Members of

the Evacuation Representation Committee unanimously elected by over 500 men, residents of the Colony of Hong Kong, at a Meeting held at the Peninsula Hotel on Friday the 8th day of November, 1940.

SHEWE TH:

WE, the Undersigned, being the duly elected Members of the Evacuation Representation Committee of Hong Kong representing over 500 men, whose wives, children and near relatives obeyed the original Evacuation Order of Your Excellency, the Governor- in-Council, hereby petition that Your Excellency may be pleased to send by cable the following petition to the Right Honourable The Secretary of State for the Colonies, as follows

That the Evacuation Representation Committee hereby petition that the compulsory Evacuation Orders should be further revised so that evacuates who left the Colony of Hong Kong for Australia and

owing

elsewhere to such Evacuation Order should be permitted to return to the Colony if they so desire for the following reas ons

The original Evacuation Order caused grave dis-satisfaction indignation and unrest. There were many contributory causes, some of the Principal being :

First, that the requisite steps were not taken to prepare for any emergency between the time when the original scheme was worked out on behalf of the Government in 1939 and the date of the

Evacuation Order on the 28th June 1940.

1.

Secondly,