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HICK 18/4
Reference.....
Mr Wenban-Smith (UN Department K 150).
33)
REPRESENTATION OF UK DEPENDENT TERRITORIES AT THE UN WORLD POPULATION CONFERENCE 1974
1. In your minute of 25 March you asked whether I would see difficulty about taking a hard hearted line towards Hong Kong's request that they should be allowed to participate in the UN World Population Conference as members of our delegation.
2.
I appreciate your concern to keep the numbers down, and your anxiety that participation by Hong Kong might set a precedent for other dependent territories. On the otherhand there are, I think, substantial reasons why we should allow Hong Kong to attend if they want to. They clearly have a population problem, and indeed the colony is one of the most densely populated places in the world. There is a population of over four million in an area of 400 square miles. The population is increasing both by birth and by continuing immigration from China. Hong Kong contains at least eighty per cent of the total population of our remaining dependencies. I suspect it has a larger population, and a more serious population problem, than have many of the countries participating in the Conference in their own right. It differs from the other dependencies in this respect, and its representation at the Conference could therefore hardly constitute much of a precedent for the others. Moreover, we have quite enough problems already with Hong Kong, and would not wish to add to them by an argument on this matter if it could possibly be avoided.
3. I hope you can therefore agree that we should reply favourably to Hong Kong. I see that Mr Holmes' letter of 4 March to me, which referred to the Social Affairs Department of the ODA, was in turn referred to you. I have therefore yet to reply to it. I should like to do so in the sense that we can agree to Hong Kong's participation, but would ask that their representation be kept as small as possible.
4. In passing, I might add that the Seychelles also have a population problem, mainly resulting from the fact that ninety per cent of their
/population