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CONFIDENTIAL
22 January, 1969
41
Cross Harbour Tunnel
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I must apologise for sending you a rather cross telegram in the shape of my CREDA 4 of January 18.
2.
You will have gathered, however, that information is now reaching me that the French have told the Tunnel Company that some new form of finance is being discussed between themselves and certain unnamed British interests. They have given the Tunnel Company to understand that this new form of finance will involve a request for certain guarantees. This has immediately been interpreted by those who are in the know here as a sign that E.C.G.D. have nobbled the opposition somehow.
3. As you are aware this is an emotional place and the temperature has risen to boiling point. My fear is lest those who are behind the tunnel proposal, e.g. R. C. Lee, L. Kadoorie and Col. Clague, etc. will really come to believe that E.C.G.D. is simply playing a wrecking game. This in turn will lead them to adopt a dog in the manger attitude themselves and take it out on existing British exports. Such a course would have much more serious repercussions on our interests than the mere losing of a single contract, even if it is a valuable one like the cross harbour tunnel. I have stressed previously in this correspondence that the men behind the cross harbour tunnel schene personally contrab a very perceptible proportion of Britain's exports to Hong Kong. We know from what has happened in the past that each of these men is quite capable of ditching British firms. You have only to remember how Lawrence Kadoorie took away the oil contract for China, Light & Power from Shell and gave it to the Esso Company without giving Shell the slightest knowledge of what he was up to, or the slightest chance to make a counter proposition. Clague also deliberately built up the Fiat business here when he was annoyed with the way Rovers refused to fall in with his ideas.
4.
I am copying this letter to Bunny Carter in F.C.O. and to Ken Cotterill in E.0.G.D.
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F. A. Toms, Esq., Commercial Relations & Exports Department.
(M.P.V. Hannam)
Principal Trade Commissioner
CONFIDENTIAL