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On my
Mr. Leard
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NT. IT HU, I looked with this and we Uneathed some
about financial devitalin.
The articlon Hong Kong in yesterday's Observer Magazine
says that "in 1958 a considerable degree of autonomy did come to
but only to its bureaucratic Government.
On paper
the Colony
Item and London has retained wide powers. But in practice it abdicated
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almost all of its responsibilities to the Government on the spot
12 years ago".
2.
Could a search be made to see what precisely was said to
Hong Kong in 1958? I believe the Governor said to you in Hong Kong that the Secretary of State's first letter to him was
hardly in keeping with the 1958 delegation, so that we ought at
least to know if by inadvertence we have made constitutional
history.
3.
Apart from this incident I have, since I took over my present
responsibilities, seen no reference to any important constitutional
convention dating from 1958. It has not for instance been referred
to in the reference notes on Dependent Territories constitutions
prepared by C.C.D. in 1969, in the background briefs for
Mr. Stewart's visit to Hong Kong or for our present Ministers
when they took up office. It seems in fact that this is an instance
where the "tribal memory" on which D.T.A.D. has relied so much
has failed us for once.
вовыбрала
(L. Monson)
7 December, 1970.
t