REF.
20.
NATAL
21 May 1971
82)
1.
I promised in PCO telegram No. 383
to send you an account of Mr Royle's recont talk with P.7. Tang.
2.
Although he had something to say on a number of Batters of general interest to us Tang spent most of the time talking about promises allegedly mãe by lord Shepherd and others to the effect that I would make a grant of Al million to Hong Kong towards the coat of building end equipping a library for the new Polytechnic in return for agreement to a defence contribution of C5 million a year, Lord Shepherd had of course nothing to do with the negotiations between HNG and the Hong Kong Government in 1966 and this was explained to Tang. he accepted that there was no officiel record indicating that eny promises of such a nature had been made at any time. He maintained hovores that the Unofficial Kerbors of the Councile had been led to believe that IFG would assist the Colony in this way.
3.
During the discussion the £400,000 for the technical institutos came up and Tang then agreed that a further gift of £600,000 would, as it were, wipe the elate 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. Tie was however concerned about the alleged promises of assistence to which Teng had referred and he said that he would have the Latter looked into.
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 Teng's story. I ryself wrote to Arthur dcleworthy on my retan from long Fong last year. (0.Y. Kump said Arthur could confirm the story. Arthur emphatically did not!). laird has been in touch with Cumming-Fruce (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. Fowhere have we been able to find any suggestion of any commitment to provide aid either qs
HE Sir David Trench, GCMG, MC,
The Governor,
HONG KONG
/"compensation"
CONFI ENTIAL