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23 December, 1969.
Thank you for your letter of 11 December about Hong Kong representation in Geneva. I deferred replying until we had put the matter to & further practical test at last week's meeting of the Cotton Textiles Committee.
2. That experience convinces me of one thing above all; namely that it is foolish and indeed dangerous to attempt to reduce UK/Hong Kong relations in the GATT field to a written concordat. You saw how things wont last week, without any formal prior agreement on the respective roles of the UK and Hong Kong elements in the delegation. Jordan was able to play a forward and indeed decisive role in the Committee while remaining a full member of the U.K. delegation and speaking, in the Committee itself, from the U.K. seat. True, matters were helped on this occasion by there having been set up two informal groups representing respectively the importers and the exporters but this does not, I think, qualify my judgement that the situation can best be handled without new formalities.
3. My interest in seeing the exchange of cables with Hong Kong in September was somewhat tempered by regret that I had not seen them before and indeed that I had not been consulted before the reply to Hong Kong was sent. I should than I hope have made the general point I have made above: but I should have gone on to point out that the argument of past experience in paragraph 6 of the Governor's personal telegram No. 713 is, in my view,
a misrepresentation of fact. Certainly, while I have been in charge here no Hong Kong representative has been free
R. Goldsmith, Esq.,
BOARD OF TRADE.
/to speak
REF.
*******
Kt,*
REF.
34
CONFIDENTIAL