NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
CONFIDENT IAL
Registry
DRAFT
No. HKK 25/3
LETTER S
ECURITY CLASSIFICATION
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Confidential.
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To:-
His Excellency
Sir David Trench, GCMG., MC.,
Government House,
HONG KONG,
Type 1+3
From
Sir L. Monson
Telephone No. & Ext.
Department
PRIVACY MARKING
..In Confidence
how
Flag U
(although, as I
understand it you
by no restricting your proposal
request to these)
Ope
means
In a separate letter I have given you some idea of our thinking and the action we are taking in regard to the staffing of the DTAD and of the dependent
territories. In this letter I would like to turn to
some of the matters of detail that are exercising us in considering your suggestion for an exchange of staff between the Diplomatic Service and the Hong Kong
Administration. In so doing, I shall be picking up some of the points you made in your letter of 16 April,
1969 to Arthur Galsworthy.
2.
We take your point about the need for those who will man the dependent territory desks in the FCO having some practical experience of colonial admini stra- tion and this has been very much in the forefront of our minds in our DTAD staffing exercise. At the same time we have to bear in mind that, for career reasons, Diplomatic Service officers may not wish to be (and perhaps we cannot afford to let them be) specialists in this field. It might therefore help if while gaining their experience of colonial administration they were to be employed in a capacity which might also enlarge their general experience in a way that would be useful upon return to diplomatic duties. Leaving aside the Political Adviser's office an ideal department from this point of view would be the Commerce and Industry Department, with its extensive overseas contacts and its constant preoccupation with international trade problems. also see the Finance and Economic branches of the Secretariat as offering useful specialised experience
and, to a lesser extent, the of general application; Defence Branch. For Chinese-speakers/the department of the Secretary of Home Affairs might offer a suitable combination of local administrative
We
* (118281) Dd. 391599 1,500м 2/69 Hw.
/ experience