SPE. KING NOTES
(For Secretary of State's meeting with all Farty
Anglo-tiong Kong Committee in House of Commons
on Wednesday, 3rd Hay, 1967).
Defence Contribution
After two visits to Hong Kong by the last Colonial Secretary
in August and December last year, the level of the Colony's defence
contribution was agreed at £5 million a year for the next å years.
Of this some 4.5 million is to be paid in cash, the remaining being
made up by works' services performed for the Hong Kong garrison.
This agreement represented a very large increase in the contribution.
It had previously stood at a basic £1.5 million a year, plus an
additional (but temporary) contribution of £1 million a year to defense
works. It has been much criticised in Hong Kong as imposing a
burden which could only be met at the cost of the development of
social services.
2. The primary reason why we sought this large increase was the
difficult economic position which wo found ourselves in last last
year and the necessity to reduce the burden of overseas defence
expenditure. But apart from this considerɛtion tho agreement can
(in the words used by itr, Lee in Pažliament) be described as "fair".
The contribution which Hong Kong has agreed to make represents just
about half our local expenditure
garrison in Hong Kong and it
is related to the number of troops whose presence in the Colony is
regarded as necessary for the purposes of internal security. It has
long been a principle in our relations with dependant territories
that they should shoulder responsibility for their own internal
security to the extent that they are able. Fortunately as the recent
budget has show there is no reason at all to doubt that Hong Kong's
economy is able to take this additional defence commitment in its
stride without sacrificing existing plans for the expansion of the
social services.