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لمهنه
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141
Mr. Gent
M M
Mionby
I think it worth recording that during my recent trip to Chungking I encountered
considerable doubt in British communities every- where east of Cairo regarding British intentions towards Hong Kong. I met a good many British folk both going and coming: there was scarcely one who, when he learned the object of my journey (which was no secret); did not enquire whether Great Britain really and truly intended to take back and to hold Hong Kong.
The enquiries came from such widely differing sources as a Russian-born ex-employee of the Hong Kong Dairy Farm now working in Calcutta and a senior member of the Ambassador's staff in Chungking. I drew attention again and again to Mr. Atlee's reply on the subject of Hong Kong in the House of Commons which most people had seen but which, for reasons I am unable to guess, seemed to have been taken with a pinch of salt.
If I interpreted correctly the nods and becks of those of my Chinese friends whom I managed to see in Chungking, the Chinese seem a good deal more reconciled to not getting possession of Hong Kong the day after tomorrow than they were in 1942: curiously enough, they show on the whole somewhat more faith in British tenacity as regards the sovereignty of the Colony than our own Far Eastern Communities, if (as I think) the people I met were in any way representative.
I should add that there was no Briton in
the
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