CO129-591-9 Policy directives 15-1-1945 - 15-1-1945 — Page 9

54132/45.

Downing Street, S...1.

13th April, 1946.

аг

Sear

Dear Young,

since we had our talks yesterday I have learned that, so far as our records show, you have not seen any of the policy directives drawn up for the guidance of the Military Administration in Hong Kong. It is late in the day to be sending the se directives to you but even now you may find it useful to look through the enclosed set of them.

it

I must add a word about the circumstances in which these directives were drafted. Throughout the planning for the administration of the Par Eastern Colonial territories on their liberation, was assumed that the war with Japan would not necessarily terminate with our return to those territories which might therefore have to be used as basce for further military operations. For this reuson it was considered desirable that any state- ments of administrative policy should be formulated in that simple form which clearly would be most suitable for a Military Administration functioning in an area which was still the base of military operations clsewhere. In the case of Hong Kong there was the further complication that right up to the days immediately preceding the collapse of Japan, it was not known whether Hong Kong would be in a British Military Command or whether it might perhaps be within an incrican or Chinese sphere. this reason the directives drawn up for Hong Kong werc on less detailed lines than those for Malaya.

SIR MARK YOUNG, G.C.M.G.

Nevertheless

3

For