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c)
6.
newsworkers will be out by early October, it should become progressively easier to hold the situation as the end of the tunnel approaches.
We have taken account of the possibility that if we simply let the eleven newsworkers out in September and October the Chinese will not regard this as any concession on our part, and that we should have thus lost the opportunity of giving the Chinese the relatively harmless "victory" which they may regard as a pre-requisite for their acceptance of a modus vivendi in Hong Kong. However, our experience of the Chinese suggests that they will not be at a loss to present the release of the eleven, whenever it comes, as a victory. They will have prevailed to the extent of having held on to Mr. Grey until we have stopped "the persecution of patriotic newsworkers in Hong Kong“. In short none of the foregoing considerations seem to me to constitute an overriding objection to letting matters take their course until October unless we were to be faced with a marked deterioration in Mr. Grey's health and consequently increasing public anxiety here. However, since the risks involved in the premature release of the newsworkers become less the nearer we approach their due release dates it is for consideration whether we might ask the Governor to use his discretionary powers of remission say at the end of July. If he were to remit the remaining sentences of all eleven, this would almost certainly shorten Mr. Grey's ordeal by about two months. It would be a mild "kowtow" towards the Chinese (see paragraph 5 c) above), which might in turn be a useful insurance against the possibility of their attempting to force further concessions before releasing Mr. Grey. But there is a snag. We might reasonably ask the Governor to remit the sentences of the ten. But to suggest to him that he might remit Wong Chak's sentence also would be in effect to ask him to make a nonsense of the careful
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