Sunday, 16 March

At four in the afternoon, I went to visit eldest cousin Hilda [Ozorio[1]], Mr. and Mrs. Rocher, Victor [Ozorio], Cloo and others. The cake made by eldest cousin and the Portuguese rice cooked by Victor were both delicious. According to eldest cousin, the reason why tenth brother’s wife, Yongde, committed suicide was that after her mother came to Hong Kong, she (her mother) left her business to her to manage. But when the Chinese Communists entered Shantou, they forced her to hand in the donation, and so on. She was unable to cope with them so she committed suicide. It was really miserable. Rocher said that his son had gone to Canada, so he also intended to follow. He was quite pessimistic about the prospects of Britain.

The New York Times has reported on the conditions of military hardware in the Soviet Union this year, saying the worth is 113,800,000,000 roubles, which is double the amount of 1940. Therefore the Soviet Union’s military strength for the moment is the strongest in its history. Also, the allocation for the industry of basic military devices was about 24,000,000,000,000 which would be spent on national defense. The amount takes up around fifty per cent of the total budget. As for the Soviet productions of steel, iron, coal, oil, and heavy machinery, they are unprecedented. The production of steel and iron is 3,100,000,000 tons.

[1] The Ho family had married into the Ozorio family from Macao. Yongde’s children, Pearl and Victor Ho were adopted by Kitty.