SECRET
TOP COP
Cypher/Cat A
HONG KONG TO COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (D.T.D.)
PRIORITY
elno 1358
SECRET
8 September 1967
Following for Galsworthy.
RECEIVED IN
ARCHB
64
(67)
Your telegram 1840: Communist Press.
HWA 14/12
I have always believed that the enactment of emergency regulations covering newspapers would be a major escalation. Their promulgation would in itself be a provocation and from experience so far I do not think it likely to prove a real deterrent. issue, however, is that I could not contemplate or justify their enactment if it was not intended to apply them forthwith and to the full. This in effect means the closure of all remaining newspapers.
2.
The real
As has been shown from the action taken against the three minor newspapers there is plenty of sting in the existing law. The purpose of emergency legislation would be to facilitate the suppression of the remaining newspapers with minimum delay and legal process when that course had been decided upon. It is true that the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for the outstanding newspapers would be made easier under emergency regulations than under the substantive law (because they have gone to ground in 'protected' premises) but it is doubtful if this alone would justify them.
る。
There is some indication that the remaining papers are becoming more cautious and I do not think this is the moment to go against them.
HURY/N OF
2
40 The Mosquito Broadsheets are a different matter.
Some are probably the product of enthusiastic amateurs (see paragraph 1(e) of my telegram 1345) but others represent a deliberately planned attempt to encourage and guide activities of a terrorist nature. The emergency regulations we contemplate against these inflammatory leaflets are closely parallel with the existing regulations against inflammatory posters (see Legal Notice 83 of 1 June) and are not a direct threat against newspapers as such.
5. The complication involved in such regulations lies in the fact that some of these Broadsheets are probably being produced in "sensitive" Communist owned premises against which it might become necessary to act. I do not, however, regard the risks of serious reaction on this score as comparable with those which could arise if we were to go for the newspapers.
LAST REF.
03.
3)
65
SECRET
/6. It seems