HK K 21/8
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Confidential
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Thank you for sending me a copy of your letter to Pricej of 24 September about the proposed underground railway.
As you know, Philip Haddon-Cave, Financial Secretary designate, is now in the UK. When he called on me the other day I took the opportunity to discuss this project with him and you will be interested to hear that he is very much against it. He thinks it will be far too expensive for Hong Kong. I am not sure whether he was reflecting the views of Sir John Cowperthwaite or whether what he said represented his own thoughts, but he made it quite clear that even if it was decided to go ahead with the scheme a decision could not be taken until, at the earliest, the end of 1971. This conflicts of course with what you were told by Shephard. With what little knowledge I have of Hong Kong I am inclined to think what Haddon-Cave said is probably much nearer the mark than what Shephard said.
that
Haddon-Cave went on to say that in his view the answer to the Colony's transport problems was to accetrate the road building programme and to introduce strict parking regulations and heavy parking charges for motor vehicles so as to make it unattractive to people to own motor vehicles.
Heddon-Cave was of course talking to me informally and I think therefore that you should not mention any of this to Shephard, or to anybody else in the Hong Kong Government Service
I went on to ask him about the activities of the Japanese in Hong Kong. He said that the Chinese were worried about the dongers of a Japanese takeover of the Hong Kong economy. They did not like the Japanese, This should help British firms to gain contracts and Haddon-Cave said that such firms did have a considerable advantage in Hong Kong (e.g. it was easier for representatives of British firms to talk to Government officials than it was for representatives of Japanese firms).
Haddon-Cave also told me that the Hong Kong Government had had
2. K. Blackwell, Esq, CBD,
Senior British Trade Commissioner, (PC Box 528),
7th Floor,
Shell House,
Queen's Road Central,
HONG KONG.
/much trouble
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Confidential
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