STAFF IN CONFIDENCE
CONFIDENTIAL
Mr. Cole
Reference......
Exchanges of Staff with the Hong Kong Government
When Ir. Imray and I discussed this question with you briefly last week you suggested that I let you have my personal thoughts on the idea. There are only a few points I would like to make.
2. Firstly I am convinced that secondment to the Hong Kong Government in the right job could be valuable experience to the generalist Diplomatic Service officer. The Hong Kong Government is a microcosm of Whitehall and many of the problems with which it has to deal are highly relevant to the modern Diplomatic Service. Those minuting on these papers have already pointed to two areas within the Hong Kong Government which I agree are particularly suitable: the Finance Branch in the Colonial Secretariat (which has Treasury functions) and the Department of Commerce and Industry. The Defence Branch is another possibility. The jobs which our people could do in these departments would depend on their grade and seniority. At senior Grade 5 level the posts of Deputy Financial Secretary, Deputy Economic Secretary or Deputy Director of Commerce and Industry would give insights into a wide range of problems. I would not see much virtue from our point of view in sending Chinese speakers to the Secretariat for Home Affairs (a suggestion made at the end of paragraph 2 of the draft). The work is rather parochial and would not, in my view, be of much value to a Diplomatic Service officer. Moreover, "the problem of dialec s', dismissed rather lightly in the draft, is in fact a very real one: our Chinese cadre is trained in the northern dialect, Mandarin; Cantonese is in effect a totally different language.
3. Speaking from personal knowledge, I have no doubt that the best Hong Kong Government officers are perfectly capable of holding down desks in political departments in the F.C.0. Many of them compare favourably with most of our late entrants from H.M.O.C.S. and some are well up to direct entry 5A standard. Provided the Hong Kong Government sent us only first-class officers we would not need to worry too much about their quality.
4. I think myself that both the F.C.0. and the Hong Kong Government could be expected to derive some general benefit from an exchange of staff, even on the very limited scale which we seem willing to contemplate. There is, as Sir Leslie Konson has remarked, a fairly widespread distrust of the new F.C.0. set up in Hong Kong. Furthermore, there is already a marked tendency for the Hong Kong Government to act independently of the U.K. in matters other than those affecting external relations and defence and this is likely to increase as the Hong Kong economy expands and becomes more sophisticated. Looking at the reverse side of the coin, one can hardly maintain that knowledge of
STAFF IN CONFIDENCE
CONFIDENTIAL