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that the reason why the Unofficial Members agreed
in the end to make a defence contribution of £8
million was because they did not wish to embarrass
Sir David Trench on the eve of his retirement.
If you see no objection we propose to pass this
explanation to the Treasury, although we cannot
say what effect it will have.
11.
If we fail to reach agreement at the official
level in our inter-departmental discussions here
the matter will have to go to Ministers. But
even supposing that 'FCO Ministers feel able to
uphold the Hong Kong case the chances are that
they may well be outnumbered when the question
is considered by Ministers collectively.
our view, therefore, it is essential that we
settle this matter at the official level if we
possibly can.
12. We shall be grateful for your views.
In
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