Draph.
54126|??
19261/63/33/49
16/Aba/2505(F.I).
ad of o
Colonial Office,
Sanctuary Buildings,
Great Smith Street, 3.4.1.
3
June, 1949
9
16
Will you please refer to ay latter of the 6th May, 1949 about Hong Kong currency notes uncovered in the Yokohama Specie Bank in 19457 € fe have beard from the Financial Secretary Hong Kong about this matter and I think it can now be satisfactorily disposed of,
24
It appears that the notes in question were paid into the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bark at first for the credit of the Hong Kong Coverment. Subsequently the credit was transferred to the name of the Custodian of Enemy Froperty who, in accordance with general policy, was instructed to block the funda penting a decision as to the disposal of Japanese assets of this kind,
3. There would seen therefore to be no need for you to hold an equivalent sterling sum in suspenze aná no objection, so far as Hong Kong is concerned, to your reversing the book transactics mentioned in paragraph 2 of your letter of 23rd February, 1949, to Kelvin Stark,
The question of anyone putting up an equivalent sterling sum as currency backing for these notes does not, of course, arise and indeed I see now that paragraphs 4 and 5 of your letter were not intended to suggest this. Cover in this sense must have been ut up when the notes were first issued and they have never been withdrawn from circulation; whether they were kept by the Japanese in a bank vault or by same member of the public in a private hiding place is, of course, imaterial,
Yours sincerely,
O.H. WAGSTAFF, S.,
THE WAR OFFICE.
(R.F. RADFYIR).
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