CONFIDENTIAL
LAST
REF.
NEXT
REF
130
See Soon fellow
RECEVED IN REGIST® No. 51 26 SEP 1973
COLONIAL SECRETARIAT,
HONG KONG.
17th September, 1973
NKK 5%,
better fo
To Lay
Hong Kong's Sterling Balances
Thank you for your letter HKK 5/1 of
7th September enclosing the Treasury's notes of the meetings on 8th and 10th August and your own note of the latter meeting. I hasten to assure you that I understand the conditions under which they have been sent to me; and, as they are not meant to be agreed records, I shall confine my comments to:
Meeting of 8th (Treasury Note)
para.3
"Mr. Haddon-Cave was unable to answer this question"
para. 5
"Mr. Haddon-Cave
unsatisfactory"
para. 5
•
"Mr. Haddon-Cave said that this must have been a draft- ing error.
•
last paragraph
11
M.A. Goodfellow, Esq.
28.1x
What I said was that I could not offhand estimate by how much the loss would have been less.
This is a misprint for "satisfactory".
What I said was that the wording used in whatever telegram was being referred to must have been ambiguous: at no time had we so advised the banks.
We have kept the banks informed, through the Exchange Banks' Association and our other contacts, on the state of play on the future arrangements for covering the sterling balances, but we have had so little to tell them and for some months now the banks, I am sure, have been covering their ready positions by entering into
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, S.W.1.
CONFIDENTIAL
/forward...