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COLONIAL SECRETARIAT,
HONG KONG.
17
8 December, 1971.
8+K1218/25 (5413
(69)
70
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY No. 51
17 DEC 1971
Dear Michael,
In my letter Ref. (4) in this series of 8th June, 1971 and your reply Ref.HKK 18/25 of 26th July, 1971, we discussed a procedure which would give us more time to prepare considered replies to Parliamentary Questions.
We were more than a little disturbed recently by the fact that your telegrams 890 and 891 dated 29th November and received here on 30th November gave us approximately 24 hours to prepare material for written replies to be given to Mr. James Johnson on 1st Decem- ber. These telegrams dealt with the fairly sensitive subjects of the use of Chinese in the Law Courts and in secondary schools in Hong Kong and we feel that the procedure described in your letter dated 26th July, 1971 might well have been adopted in these cases. It would be interesting to know whether in fact this procedure was considered. As you will realise, we feel strongly that in this type of case it would be appropriate for MPS to be given an interim reply to enable us to have a reasonable period of time in which to prepare material for a reasoned and comprehensive answer. I might add that to make matters worse we had 15 questions to deal with for the Legislative Council sitting on 1st December.
مید شام اسرا
NKK 8/3
E.0. Laird, Esq., CMG, MBE Foreign & Commonwealth Office, LONDON SW1.
Jike
(M. D. A. Clinton)
в нек
Copped & 14KK 18/25