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The
ground with him. Mr Macoun's note of this meeting is attached.
Godber case then blew up in Hong Kong and Mr Ellis renewed his
representations, maintaining that this case proved that the
"injustice" done to him was due to the "Hong Kong conspiracy of
corruption". Mr Royle decided that we should ask the Governor if he
would refer the Ellis case informally to the Anti-Corruption
Commission (FCO telno.1117 of 5 November 1973). The Governor, in his
telno. 1302 of 13 November 1973, opposed this on the grounds that it
was highly unlikely the Commission would discover anything new after
ten years, and that its failure to do so would probably cause
allegations that the new Commission was no better than the old
machinery and was yet another device to cover up, rather than to
reveal, corruption.
5.
However, Mr Royle subsequently discussed this with
Mr Jack Cater, the newly-appointed Anti-Corruption Commissioner, when
he was in London in December.
Mr Cater informally agreed that he
would consider the corruption aspects of Mr Ellis's case when the
Commission started operating. In doing so, however, he said that he
was going outside his own brief and asked Mr Royle not to write to
the Colonial Secretariat about it at that time. Mr Royle wrote to
Mr Ellis on 6 December 1963 confirming that as Mr Ellis's MP he was
prepared to put his case to the new Anti-Corruption Commission in
Hong Kong and to request an investigation. He pointed out that
the Commission would inevitably have to concentrate on the corruption
aspects of the case. Now that the Commission is about to start
operations and Mr Royle has left the Office, I have written a personal
letter to Mr Cater reminding him of this undertaking.
I have, however,
/asked him
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