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officer who was to be sent to Bangkok and talked about the matter with the Hong Kong Government. It seems that this situation has now been smoothed over.
2. Hong Kong
(a) Corruption
The one constant theme of our visit to Hong Kong was the flight of Superintendent Godber to this country and the inability under the present law to extradite him. The reason for our inability to extradite Godber is a very sophisticated argument and the Chinese that I met were not convinced by the arguments which were put forward and linked the matter very dearly with the matter of the death penalty. The general argument was that, if the United Kingdom could interfere with the death penalties recommended by the Governor, then it could also interfere with the case of Godber. The question of corruption is very much in the news and I had a full afternoon with the police and discussed this matter with them at length. There is no doubt that police morale has been badly shaken by the Godber episode but it is difficult to see how, under the present rule, they can get evidence convincing enough to satisfy the courts and thus achieve convictions. There is considerable hypocrisy about corruption but there is no doubt that it is being made an issue. For example, Bill Elliott and I spent sometime with students who had taken this subject as their theme and in fact some have already been arrested and are awaiting trial for staging an illegal demonstration on this matter. I was constantly reminded that corruption had been cured in China, and particularly in Singapore, but in both of these cases there was a very simple answer,
i.e. in China people who had corrupt dealings were shot and, in Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew would dismiss or take other administrative action on mere suspicion. Both these methods are denied to the authorities in Hong Kong where the judiciary seemed particularly to stand up for the rights of the individuals before the courts. Nevertheless comparisons are going to be drawn between corruption in British-administered territory and on the mainland, Singapore, and even Taiwan.
In a short interview Elliott and I had with the Governor we raised this matter with him and he did tell us, as no doubt you are aware, that he is going to recommend