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Royal Visits Committee
Visit by a member of the Royal Family to Hong Kong
Notes for the Permanent Under Secretary's Brief
At its last meeting on 10 October, 1967, the
Committee noted that the Governor of Hong Kong was
anxious that a member of the Royal Family should attend
the inauguration of the Plover Cove water scheme in
October 1968 and considered a suggestion that His Royal
Highness the Duke of Edinburgh should visit Hong Kong
for this purpose.
2. The minutes of the meeting record the view that
this idea could at that time only be noted as a
possibility for later consideration.
In the course of
the Committee's discussion on the subject, it was not
felt that the Duke of Edinburgh could conveniently fit
in a visit to Hong Kong if he kept to his schedule of
flying from Mexico City to the Galapagos Islands,
Brazil, etc. Doubt was also expressed whether, having
regard to possible Chinese reaction to such a visit, he
was the right person for the purpose, since he was so
close to the Throne. The possibility of considering
another member of the Royal Family was mentioned.
3. Hong Kong is now, in terms of population and
economic activity, by far the biggest of our remaining
colonial territories.
During the last eight months of
1967 the Colony passed through a very testing period of
/Communist
W(B)L 51-74 33
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