8
I am also of the opinion that the Foreign Office should see the Ordinance.
I have no further observations.
Fabie Kame
3/3/41.
The circumstances of Hong Kong are quite exceptional. With few exceptions the population is Chinese, of whom a section are technically British subjects by reason of birth in the Colony, but all are by Chinese law Chinese nationals whatever other nationality they may possess in addition. population is for the most part a shifting one Hong Kong when a livelihood there presents itself, and moving to Canton or to their ancestral villages in South China as circumstances may incline them.
The Chinese
to
The present law is described in the Attorney General's report as "an emergency measure to meet abnormal conditions" and it is the intention of the Government to re-examine the whole problem as soon as the situation permits.
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The defence authorities have continually urged, as a vital defence measure, the reduction of the present great excess of Chinese population (refugees from Japanese war and oppression in South China), and the drastic powers to restrict admission to the Colony so long as the present emergency lasts. These defence considerations are not merely military questions of food supply or the power to control the civil population in the event of heavy attack on the crowded urban areas of Hong Kong, but they include also questions of public health which are of the first importance in a tropical climate. While it is true that under Section 12(2) the Immigration Officer is enabled to refuse admission to British subjects born in Hong Kong in fact he is required to refuse to issue certificates and permits to those undesirable categories cited in Section 12(2)(a) (k) it should be appreciated that the people concerned will be, in virtually every case, Chinese coming from China, to which they belong just as much as they may be said to belong to Hong Kong. There are Defence Regulations to deal with the specific and restricted matters of evacuation and deportation, but the very much wider purposes of the present measure make it more suitably enacted in this way than by Defence Regulations, which would probably rather stretch the provisions of the Defence Act. There are really two emergencies which the measure deals with. First a prospective attack on Hong Kong, and secondly the emergency conditions of refugees and very serious overcrowding which cometiaute the emergency tondition in which Hong Kong has been
living for the past two years.
I advise that subject to any comments by the Foreign Office, the Ordinance should be sanctioned, and that the Secretary of State should expressly note
remack when the emergency purpose of this legislation and the
intention to re-examine the whole problem as soon as
the
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