NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
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order. But the battle of sustaining public
confidence requires that the outside world, and
Britain in particular, should demonstrate support
for Hong Kong and show confidence in their ability to
withstand these pressures. The Hong Kong Government
are concerned that indefinite postponement of the
tunnel project would be interpreted in Hong Kong
as an indication of the outside world's lack of
confidence in the Colony's future. It is not
known whether, if Costains had to withdraw, one
of the other tendering firms would still wish to
proceed but even if the project were to be saved
damage to confidence occasioned by the withholding
of British financial support would remain and a major
and probably prestigious engineering contract would almost certainly be lost to Butain.
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