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by need to preserve secrecy.
It would be necessary for local reasons to make a press announcement shortly thereafter to emphasise that accommodation was being provided at Portuguese request and Portuguese expense and would be occupied only until evacuees moved on to some other Portuguese territory.
5. On transportation, I agree that so long as the ferries keep running they could certainly cope with numbers on the scale the Ambassador suggests (some 450 (repeat 450), not 700 as in my telegram No. 68, appear to have arrived here already in any case). There is no suitable sea transport that I could oblige to go to Macao without taking emergency powers for requisitioning: in any case it seems to me of great importance not to depart from the principle suggested in paragraph 1(d) of my telegram No. 57.
6. An interesting sidelight on the Portuguese attitude is that the Portuguese Government troopship "TIMOR" which arrived here on 10th January, was allowed to depart yesterday for Timor in spite of pleas by the Governor of Macao that she should remain here for some days. Although she is too large to go alongside at Macao, she could undoubtedly take a considerable number of Portuguese citizens away from Hong Kong.
(Passed as requested)
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