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SEVERAL elements combined to
provoke the riots in Canton in which the British Consulate and three offices were burnt down. These are the congenital excitability of the Cantonese; the aggressive nationalism now rampant in China especially among the students (which is as much a nuisance to the Chinese Government as to anyone): the reckless disregard for fact, and even probability, of Chinese news- papers; and the intermittent clamour in South China that Hong Kong must be returned to China. It is not unlikely that Communist agitators fanned the explosion, and that it was two of these whose arrest by the Hong Kong police was the flashpoint. In evicting the Kow- loon beggars ("squatters" is a mis- leading term) whose filthiness must be seen to be believed, Hong Kong has merely done as Chinese magis- trates have done for thousands of years, except that the magistrate pushed the beggars as quickly as possible into the next magistracy; Hong Kong has promised to find them another settlement. This and the Chinese Government's evident desire to stop the uproar from spreading should, it must be hoped,
ad to a speedy settlement.
18 JAN 1948
Me Wallace 17/535
MX Mayle.
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