CONFIDENTIAL
Reference.....
will (788)
Mr. Mason
Now that you are back from leave you will
certainly wish to read the attached memorandum by
Sir Donald Hopson on Sino-British relations, with
particular reference to Hong Kong.
2.
I agree with Mr. Gaminara that the memorandum
is persuasively argued; but it does seem to me that, not unnaturally, it rather over-simplifies the main issue of an amnesty for the convicted prisoners in Hong Kong, and underestimates, I feel, the difficulties which this would create for the
Hong Kong Government.
3. I think we should be ready quite soon to
give our views on the memorandum as a whole, and of course for this purpose it is essential that we should get Sir D. Trench's views on it. I am not
sure whether Sir D. Hopson will have sent him a
copy from Peking but I doubt it. We should therefore get Far Eastern Department's agreement to our sending a copy to him as soon as possible, inviting his comments.
4. Tɔ a large extent, of course, we will have had his comments, since a lot of the ground has been covered in exchanges of lengthy telegrams between Peking, London and Hong Kong over the past two months or so.
And since the memorandum was
prepared in Peking, there have of course been some
moves on both the detainees and the convicted
prisoners, in the sense that Sir D. Trench and
Sir D. Hopson have agreed in Hong Kong how we should handle further releases of detainees over the next period, and just over a week ago we asked Sir D. Trench if he would review further the possibility of an act of clemency for two of the convicted NCNA prisoners on the assumption that China granted most at any rate of the outstanding exit visas. I think we should be getting Sir David's views on this within a day or two.
A19.
(A. N. Galsworthy)
19 August, 1968
CONFIDENTIAL