CO129-590-26 Hong Kong International Committee in Aid of Chinese industrial Co-operatives 17-6-1942 - 9-7-1942 — Page 2

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The International Committee in Hongkong was composed of people like the Bishop, Dr. Chen Han-seng, Miss Elsie Fairfax Cholomey, Mrs. Selwyn Clark and James Bertram. I'm not sure if all the above named were actually members, but they were mixed up in it, together with several prominent Chinese and some Americans.

The activities of the Committee, so far as I know, caused no political embarrassments, though its personnel was what might be called leftish. The Industrial Co-operatives, whose moving spirit is of course Rewi Alley, had a curious split personality. In Hongkong and in the provinces of China, its complexion was distinctly to the left: in Chungking, at its head and in full control, was Dr. H.H.Kung and his wife as far to the right as it is possible to be. The underground conflicts resulting from this situation caused us no embarrassments in Hongkong however, since the International Committee was tactful and Dr. Kung's authority complete.

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The Committee's activities consisted in assisting the co-operative movement in China from regional headquarters in Hongkong. They had an office from which they issued (and distributed both locally and overseas) a small monthly bulletin. I obtained permission for them to broadcast weekly in the Chinese programme from the colony describing their movement in non-political terms. They bought supplies locally (medicines, some raw materials and so on) to send to their stations up-country, they held an annual exhibition in Hongkong of the goods their village factories were producing all over the interior. They collected funds both locally and from the South Pacific area. They also used the colony as a kind of recuperating ground for their staff. Rewi Alley, for instance, came frequently for rest and medical attention.

The local Government gave them what help it could so long as they did not raise any political complications: and they never did. They never, so far as I know, abused any privileges. At one point it looked a little awkward when a political group called "The China Defence League", highly critical of Chungking, and opposed in particular to Dr.Kung, began a campaign in Hongkong for reforming the central Government of China : included in this group were some of the Industrial Co-operative personnel but the affair fortunately blew over.

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He is a

I know Dr. Chen Han-seng very well. brilliant scholar, rather out of sympathy with some of the Chungking political cliques. He will not wilfully embarrass the Indian Government but, if they decide to facilitate his work (as surely they will if only as part of the war effort against Japan) it might be tactful to mention in Chungking the fact that they were proposing to give him hospitality. If there were any acute differences between Chungking and certain personnel of the Industrial Co-operatives this would ensure that India sided with the central Government of China.