COPY
Dear Steel,
BANK OF ENGLAND,
6th November 1970.
Visit of Mr.liaddon-Cave
When the question of preparing a programme for Philip Haddon-Cave was mooted earlier this year, you mentioned 9 (in your letter of 29th May) that he felt that some fairly
radical changes in Hong Kong's organisation were overdue.
(9) (in your
38/3)
Our talks with Haddon-Cave confirmed this view.
He seemed clear in his own mind where he wants to go when be takes over, and on the whole, his ideas struck us as being sensible, given the rigidity of the present set-up in Hong Kong.
Haddon-Cave is obviously very conscious that he will face a difficult task when he takes over from Sir John Cowperthwaite next year; he also seemed to be in no doubt that the rather idiosyncratic methods adopted by his predecessor are beginning to be inappropriate for Hong Kong, and that, in any case, he himself would be temperamentally unsuited to continue on these lines.
I attach a copy of a short note which we prepared here on our talks with Haddon-Cave, which you and Marshall and Wilford (F.C.0.), to whom I am copying this letter, may like to have for your own information.
Yours sincerely,
(Signed) E. P. HASLAM.
Sir L. Ma wa
sm
K.J.Steel, Esq.
(H.M. Treasury,
Great George Street, S.W.1.)
glxi