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3.
On public assistance, we may need some help and advice from someone in the U.K. expert in these matters to assist us in setting up a new system. It is going to be very difficult to avoid all sorts of abuses and keep the thing under reasonable control. But we are not yet ready to approach you officially on this.
On the political front, there are still no real signs of the Communist efforts to drag in new adherents having much effect. We had quite useful talks when Denson and Cradock were here, but they were largely confined to tactics over Grey. I hope to discuss further with John Moreton before he goes, but I am afraid the immediate prospects for Grey do not look very bright. On the yachts, I feel sorry for boat boys and the women and children, but my sympathies for the men I am able to control. Anything more wilfully idiotic than this caper is hard to conceive; and as far as I am concerned Ross, the public servant involved, is absent without leave.
I think my main worries at the moment are over the organization and staffing at the top of the Medical Department and the Education Department. I have written about the latter. We shall also need a new C.J. before long, and Michael Hogan is not too happy about the obvious successor. But I will be talking more about these problems with John Moreton, and will not trouble you with them here.
I will keep an eye on your point about the Emergency Regulations relating to detention. The only comment I must make, however, is that we must be very careful not to hedge these regulations round with safeguards to such an extent as to make them of limited value in practice. So much of our legislation designed to ensure security on vital issues turns out, when one gets to the point of wanting to apply it, to be almost unusable in practice when looked at in detail and with a specific situation in view. We came across this over and over again in 1967/68 - the Education Ordinance providing a number of good examples. (Progress with revising this is slow, I am afraid, but it is complicated). These detention powers must,
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