Ed. (3746)
NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
RegistK 6/548/3 No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted. Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
DRAFT LETTER
To:-
M. P. V. Hannam, Esq.,
United Kingdom Trade
Commissioner,
HONG KONG.
In Confidence
Type 1 +
From
W. S. Carter
Telephone No. & Ext.
Department
Miss best
Filse Jani For seen.
Lose
1413
Pographic sedimaża i love of end up between the Goremer
a)
Q Love Shepherd
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 28th February.
2.
Almost inevitably in these days, I begin
with the Tunnel. But I do not propose to refer
to the matter at length. You are very well in
the picture gownkayas about this, 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 with the Governor 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.
caredil
We took due note of 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
WE JC. rather than on political factors. Of course we