-Reference
Mr Goodfellow
fell
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NA BY
57
(HKIOD
14 SEP 1972
Hkka/2
Bur nor of the HK Gour.
the operation! of
standards
1. I am sorry not to have been able to comment sooner on these papers, but I have been away on leave.
2.
Mr Pao's motives are fairly clear, I think, from the back papers on this file. As things stand, with 60 of his 72 vessels registered in Liberia and Panama he has dock labour difficulties in Australian ports and is also prevented from entering those of mainland China. Under the Hong Kong flag (and with Hong Kong crews) these problems would automatically be solved. That there would be financial benefit to Hong Kong from registration fees and some commercial spin- off resulting from the local manufacture of equipment is probably of marginal economic significance in so affluent a territory and, I would submit, something of a red herring as regards the true commercial objectives of Mr Pao.
3.
but having said that, providing the Hong Kong authorities can be relied upon to sustain in an independent registry the same international maritime standards as they are tied to by the present arrangements then an independent registry is the logical and rational answer.. However, if there are doubts about this for whatever reason, be it from the work-load of the suggested big influx of tonnage or about the ability of the Hong Kong authorities to withstand outside pressures as regards standards from political and/or commercial sources then the idea of an independent registry should be resisted. For no matter how independent the registry might be, under the archaic provisions of the 1894 Merchant Shipping Act, all such vessels would still technically be British ships. And whereas we can no doubt deny responsibility for British ships which are operated by wholly
independent members of the Commonwealth, we would be hard put to do so as regards a dependent territory. This is therefore essentially a matter for political decision.
4.
If, on the other hand, an independent registry were seen to be too great a step in the direction of independence it still seems to me that the answer might lie, for Mr Pao at least, in a Hong Kong Merchant Shipping Act on the lines of the Bermuda MSA of 1930, to one aspect of which (officer manning) I drew attention in my minute of 1 August (folio 43). So far the DTI have not replied to your letter of 2 August on this point (folio 44).
/Bermuda
DD 897152 154596 500M 2/72 GM 3643/2