M LJ
泺
ل
Mr Laird Hong Kong Department)
EMaria
29
HONG KONG UNDERGROUND RAILWAY
In
Кајсе
En.
ビ
1.
I have just seen the draft letter which it is proposed Sir L Monson should send to the Governor of Hong Kong. This preserves the wording on the credit question which my Department queried at an earlier stage, namely: "We should be ready to assist with any credit required to finance the construction of the system"
2. I do not want to make heavy weather about this, but I am quite sure that the Treasury and the DTI would object strongly to what might be taken as an ofier of a blank cheque to the Governor. I think we may be laying up trouble for ourselves if this phrase is not replaced by something on the following lines: "We should be ready to do all we can as far as the credit required to finance the scheme is concerned, and in this connexion
11
29 January 1971
Дайа Dard West.
D T West
Export Promotion Department
12
I spoke to Mr. West on receipt of this minute and pointed out to him that the formulation which we had used in the draft letter to the Governor followed word for word that used by Mr. Toms in his letter of 9 November, 1970 to Mr. Blackwell. Mr. West said that he still thought it was liable to misinter- pretation, but if it had been seen both by the Treasury and ECGD perhaps it would be safe enough to use it. I thereupon rang up Mr. Toms, who was away, and I eventually spoke to his Under- Secretary, Mr. Sanders. Mr. Sanders said that he would look up the papers and subsequently telephoned. He said that the formula seemed all right to him and he confirmed that Mr. Toms letter had been copied both to ECGD and to the Treasury, neither of whom had reacted. In the circumstances he saw no reason why we should not use the same formulation. He then went on to say that to anybody familiar with the subject it would be clear that "assist with any credit required" did not mean that H.M.G. would ante-up all the necessary cash. It meant that they would use
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