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CONFIDENTIAL
17. About 250 "confrontation prisoners are still in prison, including 11 "newsworkers" whose imprisonment is associated by Peking with the detention of Mr. Anthony Grey. All 52 detainees have been released.
18. In brief, we continue to make steady progress in the social and economic fields. With constant vigilance we can overcome any internal pressures which would tend to impede this progress and can contain any local Communist influence. We remain vulnerable, of course, to external pressures, if the CPG should decide to change its policy towards Hong Kong, and our trade expansion remains vulnerable to trade restraints imposed, or currency disturbances experienced by our trading partners. But, on the whole, Hong Kong's immediate future looks reasonably bright, brighter indeed than might have been thought possible at this time two years ago; and the confidence of the community in that future is being well maintained.
I have, &c.
CONFIDENTIAL
D. C. C. TRENCH.