DECNET
(b) Long Term Prisoners
We supported the Governor in placing the cases of these
prisoners in the hands of the Board of Review; and
there is no disposition here to recommend that we press
the Governor to take these cases back out of the Board's
hands. It would clearly be most harmful to interfere
with the proceedings of the Board. We can only note
with a certain disappointment the fact that the Board is
in practice finding it difficult to recommend advancing
the date of release of many prisoners. This apart,
there remains only the possibility of an amnesty, mention
of which the Governor avoids in his telegram. We know
however that the Governor takes the view that such a move
would be disastrous at any rate at present; and on the
whole we should agree.
(c) We have come to the end of the positive steps we can take
This is no doubt true in the formal sense. There
remains however the question of our handling of day-to-
day incidents involving the communists in Hong Kong.
Here we still have the choice of/rigidly legalistic
a
or rather more pragmatic approach.
I do not think we
should wish to deprive ourselves of the flexibility
that has been used hitherto in dealing with, for
instance, communist trade union offenders or the
communist press. Indeed, it is fairly certain that
the Governor is not suggesting otherwise since the
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