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54064/40.

flay A

F 4882

25 OCT 1940

Dear Sterndale Bennett,

F4410

Enter Soon

Downing Street,451

23rd

S.W.1.

23 October, 1940.

seed

24

May I refer to our telegram to Hong Kong A No. 563 of the 10th October regarding the new draft

Bill in Hong Kong for the control of Chinese immigration into the Colony which was sent at your request following upon representations from the Chinese Ambassador in London. We have now received the attached telegram from the Acting Governor of Hong Kong which amplifies the information in his

F8

flay telegram No. 633 of the 8th October, a copy of which

Aus

glas D

was sent to you on the same day.

October

In your official letter of the 1st August (F 4410/43/10) the Chinese Ambassador is reported to have heard that the new measure would provide that all Chinese should be in possession of a passport. You will see that the Hong Kong proposals do not go so far. As regards the powers which are contemplated by the Colonial Government, the unrestricted entry of Chinese into the Colony has perpetuated social and other problems which had already become overripe for attention before the present war, and to which has since been added a defence problem of very real dimensions arising from the same cause.

In that light it seems to us that these powers which the Acting Governor proposes to take in the Colony are essential for him to possess even though the restrictions proposed cannot be made fully effective until conditions of critical emergency arise. We should therefore like to inform the Acting Governor that the draft Bill may be published locally subject to any views which may be expressed by Sir A. Clark Kerr and to any advice which the Foreign Office may have to give us. Before doing so, however, it may be useful

and

wt.

J.C. STERNDALE BENNETT, ESQ., C.M.G., M.C.

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