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prevent.
incursions might be aggressive or might be made by
refugees seeking to immigrate illegally. This
dispute therefore centres on which kind of incursion
the fence was primarily or predominantly designed to
As you will be aware, the accepted principle
is that the cost of internal security operations and
local defence is the financial responsibility, and
should be the first charge on the budget, of a
territory. Since illegal immigration was a threat at
the time and the fence clearly assisted to counter
this, it seems right that at least part of the cost
of the fence should fall on the Hong Kong Government.
On the other hand, we have been able to obtain
acceptance in Whitehall of the view that since external
military aggression was also felt to be threatened
and UK forces were there to meet the threat, and since
the fence countered this threat too, part of the cost
should fall on UK Defende Votes.
8. In all the circumstances we think that it would
not be unreasonable to share the total cost equally
between the two Governments and we suggest that the
total cost of the fence should be divided into two
equal parts. Since the total cost was £173,340 for
materials and some £69,000 for labour and compensation,
this would mean that the Ministry of Defence should
bear £121,170 of the disputed sum and the Hong Kong
Government £52,170 (ie £121,170 less the £69,000 you
have already spent).
9. With regard to the "Highland Bonnet" claim, in
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