NOTE FOR THE RECORD
1. Mr P Y Tang called on Mr Royle on Wednesday 21 April.
2. Although as he explained this was primarily a courtesy call, nevertheless he had much to say about a number of matters of interest to us. I am recording in this minute only what he had to say about the Polytechnic.
3. Mr Tang told us that he thought that they had at last found a suitable person to be director. He then launched into a long and most confused account of what he alleged were promises made by Lord Shepherd 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 agree- ment to a defence contribution of £5 million a year. Mr Royle
and I explained that Lord Shepherd had had nothing to do with the negotiations between HMG and the Hong Kong Government in 1966. At that time Mr Lee, the Colonial Secretary, had been responsible for HMG's relations with Hong Kong. Mr Tang 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 Members of the Councils had definitely been led to believe that HMG would assist the Colony in this way. In reply to a question from Mr Royle he thought that Hong Kong businessmen would be more than ready to produce dollar for dollar of any gift from Britain.
4.
Mr Royle said that he could certainly not give any assurance to Mr Tang that it would be possible to provide assistance to Hong Kong in the way suggested by Mr Tang. He undertook however to have the matter looked into once again. He referred to the
£400,000 recently offered to Hong Kong for equipment for technical institutes and enquired whether this would fulfill at least in part the promises which alleged had been made by Lord Shepherd. Mr Tang agreed that a further gift of £600,000 would "wipe the slate clean" (he did not of course use those words).
5. After Mr Tang had left Mr Royle asked me to speak to Mr Michael Herries about this to see if there was anything in what Mr Tang had been saying.
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