Wednesday, 15 October

Bishop Yü Pin (于斌)[1] came to talk with me about the case of the Italian missionaries in Changsha. I thought that in this War of Resistance, Catholics have been extremely helpful. It was inappropriate to upset its church status in China because of the mistakes of a few Catholics. Therefore, I also agreed with what he advocated that the matter should not be amplified, that he would personally look into the matter on his own, and expel a number of Italian missionaries to settle the matter. Guo Taiji and Qian Tai also agreed we would cable Chairman Xue via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I discussed with Minister Guo Taiji the change of personnel within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and speaking overall, we decided on the arrangement. It was really very difficult to handle the personnel issue. In the evening I had supper at Wu Tiecheng’s place and saw Huang Qiang(黃強)[2] there. He said Liang’s three sisters had asked him to relay their greetings to me. They did quite well in getting foreign remittances in Singapore. They also tried their very best with the patriotic fund-raising. I was just unwilling to recall the past.

[1]Yü Pin(1901-1978) was the Archbishop of Nanjing.

[2]Huang Qiang(1887-1974) was Cantonese (Hakka). He was a general and was very proficient in French.