HKK 6/548/3
CONFIDENTIAL
Hong Kong Department
38
14 March, 1969
I am afraid that I have fallen behind schedule with my promised fortnightly newsletters: please forgive me. I am grateful, too, for your own contribution to this exchange, 6/6/5 of 28 February.
2.
But
Almost inevitably in these days, I begin with the Tunnel. I do not propose to refer to the matter at length. You are very well in the picture and almost certainly better informed than we are. I see from your own telegrams that you are allowing yourself to feel a little more optimistic nowadays and we certainly hope that in the end ECGD will win the day. But we do not really expect the Company to take a decision until they have extracted the maximum advantage from the strong bargaining position into which French/British competition has put them. We have tried to ensure (through personal telegraphic exchanges we have opened up between the Governor and Lord Shepherd) that no decision is taken in favour of the French, however tempting an offer they might make, without ECGD being given an opportunity to match it. But I confess that I do not really believe that there is any risk of this for the reason I have explained: the Tunnel Company will surely not close the bidding until they are certain the last bid has been made.
3.
We have taken a careful look at the suggestion you made in your "Christian" telegram No.3 that we should inspire a Parliamentary Question with the object of concentrating public speculation in Hong Kong on the commercial aspects of the Tunnel rather than on political factors. We sent copies of course to ECGD and the Board of Trade; any such question would have to be answered by their Minister. At this stage we have only the reaction of ECGD, which is substantially the same as ours, that a Parliamentary Question could be awkward at the present time since we could not ensure that the supplementaries would be as limited in scope as the question. I cannot say that their reasons for reaching this conclusion are altogether the same as our own because they are not. Speaking for ourselves, we see difficulty in embarking on such an exercise at any time. We feel that we would have to consult the Hong Kong Government about it and I am rather afraid that they might interpret the exercise as an attempt to put the blame on them. ECGD and for all I know you yourself might well feel, if the French won the day, that the Hong Kong Government was largely to blame. But even if this were substantially true (and I for one could not accept so simplified a view) we would not help either our relations with Hong Kong or our image in the Colony by saying so. However, we have not taken a final view: still have to hear from the Board of Trade and when we do I will write at greater length. Let us hope that we can avoid any difference of opinion between us by not letting the French capture the project!
/4.
we
LACT
M. P. V. Hannam, Esq., United Kingdom Trade Commissioner, HONG KONG,
REF.
36
NEXI
REF.
ENTIAL