(134392) Dd. 737115 750M 4/70 Hw.
NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
Registry No.
ECURITY CLASSIFICATION
DRAFT
To:-
Top Secret. Secret.
Confidential.
HE Sir D Trench GCMG MC
Restricted. Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
Government House
Hong Kong
In Confidence
Type 1 +
From
Sir L Monson
Telephone No. & Ext.
Department
You will remember the consideration we gave last
summer to the composition of the Exeyctive and
unofficial Legislative Councils. We then agreed that all appoint-
^ ments should terminate on 31 December, 1971, thus
allowing Murray MacLehose a period of two months or
so after his arrival in Hong Kong in which to make
up his own mind about the membership from 1 January
1972.
November.
2. Since then, we have of course decided that you
should make the Address at the opening meeting of the
new Session of the Legislative Council in October and
that MacLehose should postpone his arrival until mid-
With this change in plan, we feel that it
is more important than ever that we should do what we
can to help MacLehose before he takes up his appoint-
ment. I propose therefore to set out in this letter
the considerations as we here see them. If you could
then let us have your further views by, say, the end
of April, we could include them in a paper for discus-
both sion with you and MacLehose when you are here next June.
^
im
3. To begin with, I am sure that both you and
MacLehose will agree that he cannot be expected to
form a view of his own until he has been in Hong Kong
for some time and has had a chance of sounding local
opinion for himself. We are clear therefore that
there will have to be a further holding operation for
1