FO371-46251 — Page 35

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SECRET.

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HONG KONG.

Pactual Background.

1. Hong Kong at the time of its cession to Great

Britain by the Treaty of Nanking a hundred years ago, was a desolate island with no inhabitants except a few groups

of fishermen. It has grown under the direction of the

British Government to be one of the great sea ports of the

world based upon British law and order and on the enterprise

of all peoples and nations alike.

Hong Kong is the

8. The British policy has been and will continue to

be that Hong Kong should be a free port+ for the services

of all trade and commerce in the Far East.

depot for an incessant flow of people and goods in and out

of China. of the population of nearly a million residents

which it had attained, all had freely come in of their own

choice or were the children of immigrants who had done so

If any prefer to live under Chinese rule there is no let

or hindrance to their moving over the border for the purpose.

3. It was a centre of settled and orderly conditions

for the benefit of all countries having relations with China

throughout the prolonged era of revolutionary disturbance

in South China.

.

Ahen the Japanese overran Changhai and South Chine

the Colony was for three years up to December 1941 able to

/serve

+The following is an extract from the Colonial Office list: "Hong Kong is a free port except for an import tariff on all intoxicating liquors, on spirituous liquors containing more than 2 of pure alcohol by weight, on tobacco, and on hydro-carbon oils (including motor spirit), and on motor vehicles not of British Empire origin. There is no export tariff."

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