ment with regard to wom ie The behaviour of the Hongkong even i Hongkong Govern-
Colony, and now those who wish to pass through is becoming "curiouser curiouser." The letter from Mr, W. S. y Colonial authorities still consider the place plished on Tuesday indicates that the British women an last few days it has been announced that women and children will no longer be permitted to land in Hongkong even in transit. Formerly they were allowed to stay in the port a maximum of seven days while awaiting their outgoing ship. This has now been prohibited, and unless. immediate ranshipment can be effected, women and children passengers are obliged to go on to Macao there to wait for their outgoing ship, upon the arrival of which in the Colony the passengers safely tucked away in the Portuguese possession are allowed to travel back to Hongkong to join it.
Surely the argument must be that if Hongkong is safe enough for over one thousand British women and children to continue residence there, it is safe enough for passengers in transit to wait for as long as a week and even longer if necessary. It is already reported that this latest ruling has seriously inconvenienced women passengers from Shanghai desiring to proceed to Australia, Ships are becoming few and far between in these days. The possibility of making a ship to ship change over in Hongkong is much less now than before, and by this utterly irrational ruling of the Hongkong authorities British women and children, obeying the suggestion of their authorities in China to leave wherever possible, are being impeded in a manner which is completely without justification. Surely the duty of the Hongkong Government is to do everything in its power to assist Britons from China and elsewhere who are loyally following the advice of their officials. That it is not doing and there cannot be anything but criticism for its attitude.
The evacuation muddle in Hongkong was in itself a scandalous example of inefficiency on the one hand, and, it is alleged, discrimination on the other, and it is not astonishing that there should be so much indignation in the Colony over the manner in which so many were permitted to escape the evacuation order. This latest. order of the Hongkong authorities will certainly not serve to allay that indignation, but only to extend it to other Britons in the Far East who are being incommoded by what appears to be a most fatuous ruling. Obviously it does nothing to enhance the safety of the Colony and its inhabitants, Passengers in transit are in no greater danger than people actually residing, and it cannot for one moment be believed that their temporary stopping over in the Colony can in any way inconvenience the officials who seem to have devised as cumbersome a method of dealing with a very simple matter as can possibly be conceived. In times such as these the simplest methods are always the best, and enforced trips to Macao, of course, at the passenger's expense do not commend themselves as the best substitute for awaiting outgoing ships in Hongkong.
It is not to be expected that the foregoing criticism will have much effect upon the official mind in Hongkong. The last thing that can be expected of it is that it should change its decision and revert to the old practice which after all worked smoothly and inflicted no hardship on anyone. But it is suggested that Hongkong officialdom which has been making quite a number of mistakes recently should approach the various problems which present themselves—and it is not admitted for one moment that women transit passengers are anything in the nature Of a problem,—with a real desire to make everything as simple as possible, especially for people following the advice of their officials here. If there is no coordination between the consular service in China and the colonial administration common sense requires that there should be an adjustment. There is, however, just the possibility that common sense is far too vulgar a commodity for the Hongkong official mind,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.