§ 91. Mr. Hastingsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any part of the £1,250,000 which will be received by His Majesty's Government from the Siamese Government for the sale of the Siamese part of the Burma-Siam Railway has been earmarked for distribution to the dependants of British prisoners of war who lost their lives while engaged in the building of this railway.
§ Mr. MayhewNo, Sir, and since the reply is necessarily rather long I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
§ Following is the reply:
§ His Majesty's Government do not, in fact, receive any part of the proceeds of the sale of the Burma-Siam Railway. The major portion of this sum is being distributed between the Governments of Malaya, Burma and the Netherlands East Indies as compensation for the material 819 which was looted by the Japanese from their railways in order to equip the Burma-Siam Railway. The balance of the purchase price is being paid into the Japanese Reparations Fund, which will ultimately be divided amongst the Allies. Normal practice would have been for any identifiable loot found on the railway to be returned to its owners. In the present case, however, this would have meant dismantling the railway and sacrificing all possibility of selling it. In the circumstances the interested governments agreed to the sale on condition that they received monetary compensation for their equipment. There can, therefore, be no question of the money obtained from the sale of the railway being used specifically for compensation to the prisoners of war who built it under Japanese direction, or to the dependants of those who lost their lives doing so. Such prisoners, however, in common with all British prisoners of war who suffered ill-treatment at the hands of the enemy during the war are eligible for disablement and disability pensions from His Majesty's Government, who have also made financial provision for the dependants of those who lost their lives on the railway.