CONFIDENTIAL
inuter
RA
45
GOVERNMENT HOUSE
HONG KONG
віту
13th July 1972
✓
Des Daret,
Many thanks for your letter
of 23rd June about Mr. Royle's proposed visit to long Kong in the autumn. I should frankly be dismayed if it were to be cancelled. Incidentially you referred to it as a further visit", but since I have been here, although Mr. Royle has twice passed through Hong Kong, the time has been entirely spent, as you know, on China.
2.
لم
It is a pity that the
visit must come so soon after those of the Prime Minister and Secretary of State, but Mr. Royle is very well known here, and everyone will realise that his will be a very different sort of visit from theirs, and I don't think there could possibly be criticism here of duplication.
3.
You ask for justification for the visit. So far as I am concerned it is essential to be satisfied that I am on-net with the Minister immediately concerned with Hong Kong's affairs. I should have thought that HMG would also wish to be satisfied that this was the case. The only way to achieve this sort of meeting of minds is for Mr. Royle to spend 4 or 5 days in the Colony each year, seeing for himself what is happening, hearing what people have to say about it, and talking over with me my plans for the future while they are in the formative stage. This sort of thing cannot be done by correspondence nor by meetings in London. Nor can it be done by a Minister not fully conversant with Hong Kong and its personalities.
/over
DBC Logan Esq.
FOREIGN & COMMONWEALTH OFFICE.
"
ON
LAMASIDEN
NI Q3A1303)
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY No. 51 11 SEP 1972:
HKK 3 548
14
letter
Excerpt from
the Governor (remainder is personal kays by Aur. Rayle's