state of the Colony's economy, To a Treasury suggestion that they
might be prepared to provide assistance if not to the development of the airport then at least for some of the Colony's pressing social needs if these would suffer as a result of Hong Kong financing the airport project, they have replied that Hong Kong does not seem disposed to allow social needs to auffer and, rather than see this happen, would seem prepared to settle for no extension of the airport or a smaller extension adequate for their nɛeda. In their view, any expenditure for the benefit of british civil aviation should be met from the appropriate spending head whien is not the aid programe.
Historically the ODM's view of Hong Kong's eligibility for assistance from the aid programme has its parallel in the Colonial Office view of its eligibility for C.D. & W. funds in the post-war yeurs. After a territorial allocation of £l† million in 1946 to asni st with post-war reconstruction, the Colony benefited from G.D. & W. funds to the extent only of occasional special grants from notably the Higher Education allocation, partly as gestures for political reasons and partly because such contributions enabled us to influence policy on higher educa ti on.
19. Thus it has not been possible to find any way in which Government funds could be made available for this project, because of 1
(a)
(b)
the limits imposed on government overseas expenditure by ministerial decisions, which preclude the provision of additional funds;
generally accepted criteria governing the distribution of funds allocated for overneas aid, which preclude drawing on the only existing resources from which funds might conceivably
be found for, or diverted to this purpose.
20. There remains the possibility of arranging assistance from private sources by a loan on the London market or from the Commonwealth Development Corporation. The Treasury and the Bank of England do not believe that Hong Kong could successfully raise a loan on the London market except under the guarantee of MNG. Such a guarantes would be unprecedented and the Treasury could not agree to give it. The Director of the Finance Department of the Crown Agents, in quite informal soundings by the P.C.0., took the view that in more
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