3.
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though coal from the north (at a price yet unnamed) looks a fair possibility. Firewood from Borneo depends on the availability of small boats for inland water transport to take the wood from the cutting area to a point where it can be lifted by ocean going shipping.
15.
To date, nearly two months after the British flag was again raised in the colony, total relief supplies received consist of one shipment of 6,000 tons of rice (about ten days' sonsumption) and one shipload of 4,000 tons of coal diverted from naval stocks. For the rest the Administration has had to depend on its own efforts to beg, borrow or steal stocks of essential foodstuffs wherever they could be found in what appears to be a hostile and unfriendly world. This situation has exactly suited the political temper of the neighbouring areas of China, who have found Hong Kong at their mercy in the matter of several essential supplies.
16.
In general,thus far however, the colony has been kept one jump ahead of a breakdown by one means or another. For firewood she burns the wood of floors and doors: when there is no coal, a skeleton supply of power is pumped in from warships: when rice and meat stocks drop almost to the vanishing point, another cargo is somehow spirited from the Delta.
17.
Labour trouble has been held off by raising the minimum basic wage from a pre-war 60 cents to l plus a grant of a monthly "rehabilitation allowance" of $30. About 40,000 free meals are served daily through the heavily reinforced charitable institutions to which the Administration gives free rice and vegetables. In their long and honourable history, these institutions have never given more valuable service than now. An extensive scheme of public works relief, employing close on 40,000 unskilled labourers on clearing the mess and dirt inseparable from Japanese occupation of any city, has also helped to steady the situation.
18.
In my view, the labour situation, at present quiet and undisturbed, is potentially one of the most dangerous facing the colony. Every effort is being made with the exiguous staff available to keep watch for the first signs of unrest. The labour unions and associations are meantime being re-formed. Sooner or later they will be organised to take political direction from outside Hong Kong: and if by that time the colony has not been able to make manifest the promise of prosperity by reviving trade and industry, the consequences are likely to be serious.
19.
The re-start of trade is a topic of discussion on everyone's lips. The plans with which the Administration arrived, which contemplated no private trading for six months or more, require and are receiving urgent reconsider- ation. Great pressure is being exercised by american agents to permit the import of commodities said to be ready for shipment from the Pacific Coast of the United States. The American Consul has sought an interview at which he asked for assurances the Hong Kong contemplated no policy of trade exclusion or discrimination: Chinese merchants with dollar credits in America and sterling credits in London daily enquire when they will be allowed to resume business operations. The Administration requires to act very quickly to avoid the appearance of pursuing a restrictive policy which would be fatal to the colony's prospects.
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