CONFIDENTIAL
Reference
65
Mr Goodfellow (HKIOD)
Woed
64
AID TO HONG KONG
1.
2.
Thank you for your minute of 20 September.
I think that the case for Britain providing the necessary finance for the Polytechnic library from the aid programme is very well made out in the enclosure to Mr Haddon-Cave's letter of 17 August.
I suggest it could be put to ODA as it stands, together with the covering remarks in Mr Haddon-Cave's letter and in paragraphs 1 and 4 of your minute.
3. As I see it, the case for British assistance to the Polytechnic library is, in developmental terms, a logical extension of the agreement to allocate funds to the technical institutes in Hong Kong. The Secretary of State's undertaking to give sympathetic consideration to any proposals from Hong Kong is of course relevant and should be invoked in aid of this case. I would not recommend you to suggest to ODA that the money allocated to the technical institutes should be switched to the Polytechnic. To my mind this would be a serious mistake which would call in question the validity of the arguments put forward for assistance to the technical institutes and could not fail to reflect adversely upon the proposal for capital aid to the Polytechnic itself. I do not think we need be over apologetic or defensive in our approach to ODA on this. My feeling, which I think is shared by your department, is that Hong Kong has not had its fair share of British aid in the past. This is an opportunity to begin to redress the balance. Personally I always liked the lines in the hynn which go:-
"Thou art coming to a king,
large petitions with thee bring".
I think it behoves us to present these "large petitions" to ODA with a certain assurance.
4.
There is another important point in this connection. Mr Burr of ODA's Finance Department in his circular on 22 August asked departments to place early bids for inclusion in the aid framework from 1973/74 to 1976/77. This framework exercise is not yet complete; I think it is important that, before it is "baked hard" your proposals for aid to Hong Kong should be placed before Finance Department and accepted by them.
5. I think it may well, despite the fact that less money is involved, be more difficult to persuade ODA to accept the case for an air traffic control radar
/simulator.
1. CONFIDENTIAL
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