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A.
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Mr. Walford Sir L. Monson
Pand p!
E.
Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company
My minute of 26 June was sent back to me before you had a
chance of reading it. The full story is, briefly, as follows:
a) We had a meeting with Mr. Jenkins on 5 May.
(b) The outcome of that meeting was reported to Hong Kong in
a letter dated 21 May. Unfortunately, that letter did
not reach Hong Kong until after the meeting between the
Commissioner of Labour and representatives of the Union
referred to in Mr. Becker's letter to Mr. Jenkins of
27 May, but even if the letter had got to Hong Kong earlier
it would have made no difference to the position in which
we now find ourselves.
(c) We have had two reports from Hong Kong during the last week.
(a) Mr. Foggon has discussed the position briefly with
Mr. Gibson, the UK textile trade unionist who was in Hong
Kong recently. Mr. Gibson said that Mr. Wakeford, the
General Manager of the Company, had told him that so far as he himself was concerned he had no objection to dealing
with the Union the decision had, however, been taken by
C
the Board that they would not recognise the Union.
2. I have agreed with Mr. Foggon that he will see Mr. Jenkins this week to find out if the latter is prepared to adopt the more flexible approach suggested in paragraph 3 of Hong Kong telegram No.428.
If Mr. Jenkins agrees that this would be the best way out of the
present situation all will be well, at any rate for the time being.
If, on the other hand, Mr. Jenkins is not prepared to give way, then Mr. Forgon and I think that we should tackle Mr. John Keswick to see if he would be prepared to try to persuade the Board to give some
ground.
3. This is not a very satisfactory situation, but I cannot see what
else we can do for the moment. Mr. Foggon is following up with
the Ministry of Public Building and Works the statement in paragraph 2 of Hong Kong telegram No. 428 that the local Director
/ has