4.
W
we should require the Government of Dependent Territories
to give priority to British as opposed to foreign commercial interests. Contrary to the general prejudice picture of a colonial power policy in the past when we had a large colonial empire lent rather the other way and it was generally accepted that the Colonial Secretary's responsibilities for the general welfare of the people of Dependent Territories, even without the principle recognised in Article 73 of the U.N. Charter, required him to allow Dependent Territory Governments and inhabitants to buy in the most favourable market and not
to give a special edge to the metropolitan country. For instance the principle of tied aid was for a long time not applied to CD and W assistance and when so applied, applying with rather less rigidity than was the case in aid to independent countries (I personally got the backwash of this as High Commissioner of Zambia when the Zambian Government found that one by-product of independence was that they should no longer use British aid monies to buy in the cheaper and more convenient markets of Rhodesia and South Africa They were shocked to the core).
If we applied this principle in the past to monies which we provided it is not surprising to find the Governor applying the same principle to expenditure which will come out of the Hong Kong public's taxes.
5.
Two last points of clarification:
Jimon
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(1) my concern has always been that Hong Kong officials, in their proper determination to be "gine bower in their relations with British business men will in practice put the latter at a disadvantage as regards their foreign competitors, and
(ii) if we did make a large capital grant or loan to Hong
Kong I would not object on "ideological" grounds to it being tied to British goods and services. In fact I
gave thought we should have done this as we need money for Kai Tak.
14 May 1971
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(L Monson)