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Willis suddenly found the trap pulled under him. Already he is a back number and is leaving in a week or two's time.
The Auditor's Report
8. The press have made sanctimonious headlines about the Auditor General's report criticising the waste of public money on a misguided film project by the Government Information Services and on certain other expensive matters. They do not seem to have raised much public interest, but the G.I.S. has been through a little rough water.
Our Future Relations
9.
You mention in your para. 5 that Blackwell is coming to see you. I do not know him myself, but have, of course, corresponded at length with him since his succession was announced.
J
10. The problem of keeping this office au courant with Anglo/Hong Kong negotiations is an almost insoluble one. Let me say at the outset that I agree with you that we are no longer in the abysmal ignorance that we were when I first came here in 1965 and for this I am grateful to you. I am very willing to believe that a good part of the difficulty is due to my dereliction. Indeed, only this week have I arranged with David Jordan, the Acting Director of Commerce & Industry, that I will have a monthly lunch with him to discuss textile and other questions. The main difficulty is, of course, that the Colonial Government - I admit not unnaturally ignores this office entirely, and this leaves the Principal Trade Commissioner to take all the initiatives and make all the running. One naturally dislikes constantly nagging busy people, and so one only tends to do so when one knows something is in the air. If that something has been kept completely confidential from the public and from oneself then I find the alarm bells have not rung in my own mind. Having made this admission however, I remain of the view that one of the easier ways to alert the Trade Commission as to what is going on is for the Board of Trade to remember our existence and our interests when they are corresponding direct with the Commerce and Industry Department of the Colonial Government.
Kowloon Motor Bus Company
11. I meant the above to be the final paragraph, but in my dictation I find I have forgotton the K.M.B. From a personal point of view, I do not think that this affair has been well developed once it has reached the platform of public discussion. From conversations I have had with H.E. and with the F.S. I guess that they agree with me. H.E. told me frankly that
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Every effort is made to ensure that the information given herein is accurate, but no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors or omis. sions in that information and no responsibility is accepted in regard to the standing of any firms, companies, or individuals mentioned.