FO371-23515 — Page 185

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Acting Consul-General H.A. Graves to His Majesty's Ambassador, Shanghai.

British Consulate-Ceneral,

BY SAFE HAND.

No. 89.

Copy.

Page 185

Copy to Foreign Office in P.L.

#

R

No.65 of 20/X11/38 Embassy,Tokyo, in F.L.

No.67 of 20/XII/38,

Mukden.

Harbin.

20th December, 1938.

324

ie Excellency,

Sir,

I have the honour to refer to my telegram

No 41 of November 19th (to Tokyo Savingram No 5) and to Your Excellency'e telegraphic reply No 49 of November 21st regarding the closing of two schools formerly known as The British High School and The Harbin English Commercial School. As soon as 1 had obtained from the two headmasters an undertaking to close their schoola 1 notified the Special Delegate for Foreign Affairs and asked him to move the authorities to make a generous contribution in view of the hardship caused to the British subjects concerned. Vr Shimomura was good enough to make a special journey to Heinking to present the case and he succeeded in obtaining ¥ 4,000 compensation for each school. ( I had, on his invitation to name a proper figure, suggested ¥ 5,000 apiece ). The Special Delegate encountered some obstruction from a junior official in the Education Department who resented what he termed my "stipulations”, and this resulted in the issue, on the 26th November,

of a formal order to the effect that the schools should

be closed as from the 21st November. The selection of

this date - a day previous to the one on which I had notified Mr Shimomura of our decision to close the

sehools - arose from a desire to exhibit authority;

Sir Archibald Kerr Clark Kerr.K.C..G..

His Majesty's Ambassador,

A

SHANGHAI.

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