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18/3.
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Mr. McKelvie (Trade Policy Department) copy on file HKK 6/13 √
Thank you for letting me see your file and for reminding me of the connection between the subject of the supply of political and economic information to Hong Kong in particular, on which we had, for the second time, embarked on our own file, and the general question of the interests of dependent territories, about which you consulted us last year.
2.
We will certainly await the outcome of your enquiries under the general heading before we go any further with ours. But I am sure that you are right that Hong Kong will need to be treated sui generis when the interests of the other dependent territories are as marginal as your papers indicate. We obviously have a lot of thinking to do in this Department about Hong Kong's problem, but perhaps I can make a few jottings to help towards a decision whether Hong Kong's needs can be catered for within the general system of information supplied to other colonies.
3. First, there is the question of coverage and quality of the information we ought to aim at giving. On the economic side (I shall not refer to the political) Hong Kong has concentrated in her Ministry of Commerce and Industry a great deal of expertise, not surprisingly when the subject of trade is of such concern to her. We should find, if we fed her with no more than routine information or reports and assessments of mediocre quality, that they would be of no use. The Ministry knows a lot already and what they are after is papers of the sort which we in this Department probably do not often see and which we lack the expertise to appraise. I am a little afraid that it is Board of Trade information Hong Kong is after and since we can foresee what their reaction would be if asked to share it with Hong Kong, what we have to get hold of is the best obtainable in FCO. But if the reports are to reach Hong Kong direct from overseas missions as Mr. Maddocks letter at (1) indicates, these will have to come from the Commercial Sections with their parallel associations with the FCO and the Board of Trade. There is a problem here.
4.
Then there is the problem of confidentiality. Mr. Carter refers to this in his interim reply to Mr. Maddocks.
5.
There will be another problem with the channels of supply. To the extent that Hong Kong has commercial representatives in three overseas centres she has direct dealings already with overseas missions and corresponds with others from time to time. have to be careful that the impression already current that she is independent in her commercial relations does not go too far. There may be the seeds of even constitutional problems here and of differences of opinion with the Board of Trade.
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