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inevitable together with a growing demand for
their improvement. It is necessary to be sensi-
tive to such pressures to avoid the very prosper-
ity of the Colony becoming the occasion of
criticism, whether malevolent or not.
er
as
8 you 4. But is also necessary to recognises
it
of your despatch,
you -de in your-paragraph 5 that the present
conditions of relatively free international trade
on the maintenance of which the health of your
and industry
commerce, and therefore of your
merce
depend, may suffer some erosion.
public finances
St world be surprising of the 人
The spectacular
growth of your export trade not your
dept helt
for its restraint
"azone) Some
of course – must generate pressures from the indust
trial sectore of your trading partners.te
restrain imports,
1968 was a year in which such
It is my
pressures became dangerously strong.
Suck pressures can be contained and that earnest hope that inspite of these pressures Hong
Kong and indeed the United Kingdom, a country as
notwithstanding
1/continue to
dependent as any upon exports, will
benefit from the expansion of world trade.
"ail\
5. No one could fail to be impressed by the
remarkable progress achieved by the Colony
economic and social spheres during the period
under review. It is a tribute (both to the
a clear indication resilience of the people of Hong Kong and te the
undoubted confidence which they have in the proven
ability of the Government of the Colony, under
your leadership, to maintain the rate of law and Ho
and well-ordered
to live
provide a stable, environment in which they can
employ to the full their apparently limitless
energy-and ingenutty-
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of
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