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Page Do£366concurrence of the FoPage102rafc366 he Governor has been authorised to enact legislation to provide for the compulsory registration of all local societies, under which all Triad Societies and all local branches of foreign political parties would became unlawful. The Governor regards this as an essential measure, not only to forestall a demand for the establishment by the Chinese Communist Party of an office in Hong Kong, but also to control the infiltration, under respectable disguises, of Communists. There is no intention of suppressing political activity for the benefit of the Colony, but only political activity which has no relation to the Colony and merely projects external troubles and quarrels into the life of Hong Kong. The proposed legislation would be non-discriminatory. Parties immediately affected would be the Kuomintang, the China Democratic League and the K.M.T. Revolutionary Committee, together with a number of smaller Chinese political partios. (The Communist Party has no branch in Hong Kong, though the majority of the public utility and waterfront labour unions are under Communist influence) Similar legislation is already in operation in Singapore and will shortly be enacted in the Federation of Malaya.

7. Attitude of the local population

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My colleagues are aware of the representations which were made to me by the Governor of Hong Kong and the Commissioner-General, South East Asia, supported by a Signal from the Commanders-in-Chief, Singapore, before the debate on 5th May as to the serious effect on the morale of the population of Hong Kong, both British and Chinese (and especially the latter, on whose attitude to us we are so vitally dependent), if we did not make it abundantly clear that we are determined to maintain our position in Hong Kong • a despatch which reached me after that debate, the Governor informed me that speculation on the part of the highly intelligent and critical public opinion in the Colony has centred not so much on what has been said in the various statements which have been made in the course of the past few months, as on the significance of what appears to have been purposely left unsaid. The plain fact is that, so long as there is any doubt in the minds of the Chinese population of our determination to maintain our position in the Colony, or, in other words, so long as there is a fear that Britain may ultimately abandon Hong Kong, they will not commit themselves to wholehearted co-operation with us in the defence of the Colony. The future risks to themselves would be too great to permit them to do so.

The Governor has also reported that, for reasons of this kind, of a total population of nearly 2 millions, probably not more than 10,000 persons, including the Police force and the permanent Government service, would prove willing to commit themselves by giving the Government their active and wholehearted support in the preservation of internal order and the operation of the minimum essential services, upon which all else depends.

Colonial Office, S.W.1.,

A.C.J.

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