X
expatriate officers only and costing £650,000 annually. I would
not regard this as absolutely impossible in terms of orders of
magnitude and while, in terms of what is essentially an aid operation,
I think it would be rough for the British taxpayer to have to foot
this bill, I fully recognise the political arguments.
3.
I would be very reluctant indeed to see dependent territories
as a class excluded from the pensions scheme. But if the suggestion
in paragraph 8 (a) of Mr. Carter's minute of 5 December is practicable,
I wonder whether the principle in the U.N. Charter to which yʊu refor
in your minute could seriously be prayed in aid by Hong Kong in this
particular situation. As I have said above, the pensions scheme
is essentially an aid operation and, in negotiating the taking-over
of responsibility for pensions, we would be making it clear that
this new factor would be taken into account in assessing the total
allocation of aid for the territory concerned. In other words,we
could claim that we were in principle changing the application of
our aid but that we were not changing the basic pattern of
distribution of aid as between dependent and independent territories.
*
Copios to:
Mr. Wilford Mr. Morgan Mr. Carter Mr. Fairclough Mr. O'Brien
(W. I. Combs )
12 December, 1969
CONFIDENTIAL