17 Nov 1945, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp
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Bernard Tohill boards the S.S. Tamaroa for the three day voyage to Shanghai. He will live close by in Nantao until his ordination as a priest on July 1, 1948.
The correspondent 'Dig In' works for the Government-run Civil Labour Control and assures readers that, contrary to previous claims, he and his fellows are doing their best to put an end to the exploitation of 'coolies' bycontractors who take a significant portion of their earnings for getting them work.
On the same page, the China Mail publishes a fierce denunciation of Civil Affairs for discriminating between those 'essential workers' who have and who have not been interned. The former are charged $8 a day for room and meals, the latter $16 - more, it is claimed, than the Hong Kong Hotel would have dared to charge in its pre-war heyday! Moreover, although conditions in the Peninsula and Gloucester may be better, some rooms at the Hong Kong Hotel have nothing but a camp bed, not even containing a mirror.
Sir Atholl MacGregor dies at Port Sudan, Sudan.
He was born in 1883 and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1909. After serving in adminstrative and legal capacities in Nigeria (1912-1926) he became Attorney-General for Trinidad and Tobago (1926-1929). He was transferred to Kenya (1929) and then to Hong Kong (1934), where he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
He presided over the court in Stanley, where he and his wife lived in a large room with seven others. He was seriously ill by the time he left camp to help in efforts to establish a provisional British administration at the end of the war - he 'dispensed legal advice from a palliasse on the floor'.
Sources:
Tohill: 'Some Notes From A Diary Of THe Years 1941-1942', 19
Dig In, editorial: China Mail, November 17, 1945, page 2
Macgregor:
http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19370622.2.136.aspx
Court, room: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11335503
Legal advice: Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, 2003, 250
