CO129-622-3 War damage compensation- requisitioned railway stores and materials 19-1-1948 - 31-12-1948 — Page 14

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3.

To return to (a) above.

There has been a great deal of delay in the War Office in dealing with these claims, which we sent to them in April 1947 (6 on the 1947 file). Mr.Keswick of Jardine and Matheson's (the Jardine Engineering Corporation Limited are acting as Agents for the Chinese Government in this matter) did a good deal of agitating for example (24) and there was at last a meeting at the War Office on the 12th August which I at ended after a hasty look through the files see my minute of 13/8.

G

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see

We are not directly concerned with the Chinese Government claim, but we are very much interested in getting the Hong Kong Government's claim settled - see now paragraph 5 of draft letter to Mr.Mussett. It will be noted that this refers, inter alia to a reminder from Hong Kong of the 14th July. That particular reminder is the telegram at (31A) in which, in relation to the Estimates, the Governor asked us to try to secure settlement during the present financial year of certain sums due to the Hong Kong Government. One of the sums there mentioned is the sum we are here dealing with.

4. To return to (b) above.

This claim, so far as I can discover, has never reached us and I say this despite some evidence that it has. See second page of Jardine and Matheson's Memorandum dated 19/1/48 (one of the enclosures to (35)). (The provenance of (35) will be seen from my minute of 23/9). That Memorandum says, apparently of the total claim of the Chinese Government for £1,295,907. 18s. "the claims were referred by the Hong Kong Government to His Majesty's Colonial Office in London, who in turn, referred them to the War Office for settlement". This statement is possibly based on what we told Mr.Keswick on the 30th June 1947 in (19) on the 1947 file. As I have shown in a marginal note against the minutes of 27/6/47, which explained the issue of (19), we made a mistake in telling Mr. Keswick that Chinese claims totalling over £1,250,000 had been sent to us by Hong Kong and had been by us referred to the War Office. The only Chinese claim we had had from Hong Kong and the only Chinese claim we had referred to the War Office was (ao far as I can see) that for £323,689.10s. which came with (5) on the 1947 file. But the confusion may equally well have arisen at the Hong Kong end, for the enclosure to (11) may also have conveyed to the Jardine Engineering Corporation that all the Chinese claims had been forwarded to London (not merely the claims for materials formally requisitioned).

In any case it seems to be correct, as stated in paragraph 2 of Mr. Scarlett's letter at (21/24), and as re-stated in paragraph 4 of my draft to

Mr. Mussett