Hongkong, Sept. 5.
The Hongkong Government today officially refuted the statement made by Mr. B. E. Maughan, representative of the body organizing evacuation from the Colony to Australia, who said that the "evacuation was not compulsory."
Mr. Maughan declared that "The Government advised women to go, and they cooperated."
Mr. N. L. Smith, the Colonial Secretary, said that "this statement is untrue. He revealed that the Government today drafted legislation to prevent the evacuees from returning to Hongkong.
Hitherto evacuated families were known to have booked through passages from Shanghai and Manila, disembarking at Hongkong.—United Press,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.