W(B)L $1-74 33
NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
Registry HKK6/831/,
No. 6790
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
DRAFT
Letter
To:-
D.I. Dunnett, Esq., C.M.G,
Board of Trade,
Type 1 +
From
H.H. Stewart
Telephone No. & Ext.
Secret.
Confidential.
Victoria Street, S.W.1.
Restricted. Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
..In Confidence
Department
Hong Kong
Thank you for your letter of 18 September
about the Hong Kong negotiations with the
Norwegians. A reply is indeed overdue.
2. I was prevented from saying anything to
Hong Kong in the terms of paragraph 5 of your
letter by the fact that when I got round to
these papers after my return from Hong Kong
there was time only for a telegram authorising
them, in the negotiations which were then
imminent, to fall back on the position we had
agreed. You will agree that a telegram would
scarcely have been a suitable vehicle in which
to convey a general point of the sort you have
made in your paragraph 5.
3. Since then I have been debating with
myself how best to make your point to Hong Kong
and frankly I do not find it easy to decide.
As you have indicated yourself, the point is
general and therefore capable of some
misinterpretation and if I were to make it
without amplification it might cause anxiety
in Hong Kong and lead to some misunderstanding.
I think I see the direction in which your thoughts
are tending and I am assisted by re-reading a
minute which Shaun Stewart wrote on 29 August
on your file Ind 1/570/G/CRE 17516/G. But
before I go to Hong Kong on this matter I should
like to be quite clear in case I invite
/questions