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Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London S.W.1
17 April 1973
His Excellency Sir Murray MacLehose
KCMG MBE
Governor HONG KONG
Sir
1.
I have the honour to refer to your despatch of the 1st
of January 1973 containing your Report on Hong Kong for the
previous year. I fully agree with the general lines of policy
set out in that despatch, and I commend the vigour with which
you personally and your staff are, despite the difficulties,
carrying out your plans for the development of Hong Kong.
2.
I also agree that the conjunction of continued prosperity
in Hong Kong with the present period of better relations with
the Chinese Government makes this the right moment to push
forward the development of Hong Kong as a place where the mainly
Chinese population will wish to live and work; and that the
Hong Kong Government must be a Government in a hurry if the
necessary development is to be completed within a reasonable
time scale.
!
3. You write of the problems of trade and finance and of the
degree to which relations with Britain are adversely affected
by these and other difficulties. I accept that these problems,
though relatively few, are important, and can lead to a sense
/of
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