CONFIDENTIAL
6.
On 3 December the Governor made another effort in a personal
message to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. He said
that while the Anglo/Italian group had improved their proposals, he
feared that this was not sufficient to match the Japanese. He
therefore urged a final effort to bring down the ceiling price of the
Anglo/Italian bid. When this did not succeed, he sent messages to
Mr Walker and to Mr Royle proposing a UK Government guarantee against
escalation.
7.
From all these examples it is plain that the Governor has
never deceived us about the difficulty of getting the British bid
validated. The DTI would presumably argue that he could have done
more to make this possible in Hong Kong. There may be truth in this.
But we should not be surprised by what has happened.
20 December 1973
CC
Mr Youde
Aestid
A C Stuart
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Dept.
CONFIDENTIAL