Mr Laird
Reference.
HKK 18/10
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1. A reply is required to the attached letter from
Mr Sneath, Acting Attorney General, Hong Kong.
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2. I attach a draft which has been agreed with Migration and Visa Department (on whose comments it is based) and with Mr Rushford.
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3. The last paragraph of the draft is based on infor- mation given to me this morning by Mr Streeton, Migration and Visa Department. He is sending us a copy of the letter there referred to. It is in fact a circular letter sent to various missions and posts abroad.
4. You will note that the attached draft encloses a copy of the Secretary of State for the Colony's circular confidential despatch of 15 September 1934. This despatch sets out the safeguards to which Mr Rushford referred in his minute of 2 November.
5. The draft is addressed to M. Sneath, although by this time 17 Robert may be back in the
chait.
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AW Gaminara
Hong Kong Department
18 January 1971
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Mr Gaminara
1.
It is most unfortunate that this Hong Kong legis- lation has been produced at the time when we ourselves are considering changes in our own legislation on the same subject. We cannot carry the matter any further forward until we have seen the summary of the proposed UK legislation. Even then we shall, I think, have to consider very carefully indeed what we say to Hong Kong proposals relating to deportation. I have not been able to check but I assume that CAP 239-Deportation
(British Subjects)Ordinance which the new Ordinance is to repeal is in fact the Ordinance which the Hong Kong Government were invited to enact when the 1934 despatch was sent out. If this is so, we cannot, I feel, refer to that circular quite in the terms in which you have done so.
2.
I am also rather concerned about the problem of achieving some kind of uniformity of the advice we send to the dependent territories as a whole on this matter, I think this needs co-ordination. Finally, there are a number of passages in the draft Bill which have been queried by somebody (? Mr Rushford), but which you have not referred to in your draft letter to Mr Sneath.