7.
(68)
CONFIDENTIAL
21 May 1971
1.
I promised in FCO telegram No. 383
to send
you an account of Fr Royle's recent talk with P.Y. Tang.
2.
Although he had something to say on a number of matters of general interest to us Tang spent most of the time talking about promises allegedly made by Lord Shepherd and others to the effect that HMG would make a grant of £1 million to Hong Kong towards the cost of building and equipping a library for the new Polytechnic in return for agreement to a defence contribution of £5 million a year. Lord Shepherd had of course nothing to do with the negotiations between HMG and the Hong Kong Government in 1966 and this was explained to Tang. He accepted that there was no official record indicating that any promises of such a nature had been made at any time. He maintained however that the Unofficial Kembers of the Councils had been led to believe that HMG would assist the Colony in this way.
3.
During the discussion the £400,000 for the technical institutes came up and Tang then agreed that a further gift of £600,000 would, as it were, wipe the slate clean (he did not of course use those words). He also told Mr Royle that he thought Hong Kong could produce dollar for dollar of any gift from Britain. At the end of the discussion Er Royle made it quite clear that he could give no assurances whatsoever that it would be possible to provide assistance to Hong Kong in the way Tang had suggested. He was however concerned about the alleged pronises of assistance to which Tang had referred and he said that he would have the matter looked into.
4.
This was not the first we had heard of these alleged promises and we had already checked our records most carefully to see if we could find anything to support Tang's story. I myself wrote to Arthur Galsworthy on my return from Hong Kong last year. (C.Y. Kwen said Arthur could confirm the story. Arthur emphatically did not!). Laird has been in touch with Cumming-Bruce (Fr Lee's private secretary in 1966 and now Civil Adviser to the General Officer Commanding in Northern Ireland). We have once again been through all the departmental papers having any bearing on the matter. Kowhere have we been able to find any suggestion of any commitment to provide aid either as
HE Sir Devid Trench, GCMG, MC,
The Governor,
HONG KONG
/"compensation"
CONFIDENTIAL