HKK 026/548/5
Mr Corta zi
Hunter
Mr Hunter CG 008
PSD
CONFIDENTIAL
53
894
HONG KONG:
PROPOSED DUTY VISIT
1. I should be grateful for financial authority, for myself to visit Hong Kong for three weeks in September/October.
2. I succeeded Mr O'Keeffe as Head of Hong Kong Department on 28 July. It has been the practice for officers serving Independent Territory departments to visit their parishes more frequently than do the officers of other geographical departments. The basic reason for this is that, because of our responsibilities for Dependent Territories, it is necessary that we in the Office should be rather better briefed on their internal affairs than is necessary in the case ofimdependent or foreign countries. In the case of Dependent Territories we do not have the flow of disinterested fact and comment on the affairs of local government normally provided by our Chanceries there.
3. In the case of Hong Kong, the need to know the situation on the ground is even greater than is the need in other Dependent Territories. Hong Kong is our largest remaining Colony. Its political future is particularly abstruse and complex and Hong Kong is one of the world's great trading powers.
Furthermore,
a large number of "pressure groups" in Britain take a close interest in the affairs of Hong Kong. They are well-placed to get information and also well-placed to obtain a hearing for their views. Consequently, officials dealing with Hong Kong need to be thoroughly familiar with its affairs and problems. the peculiar circumstances, this can only be achieved by visits to Hong Kong.
In
4. The Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Murray MacLehose, was recently in London and has urged upon me that I should come to Hong Kong as soon as possible for at least three weeks. He has also suggested that I should be there for the opening, at the beginning of October, of the Legislative Council so that I might hear the debate on his proposals for social and economic advances in Hong Kong which have recently been approved by Ministers but which might well attract unfavourable reactions in the Colony.
5. Ministers have recently approved a policy for an intensifi- cation of communications between the British and Hong Kong Governments including an increased programme of visits in both directions. The visit for which I am presently asking authority will be the first of this programme.
2 August 1976
Lee.ß. Daut.
JA B Stewart
HONG KONG DEPARTMENT
CONFIDENTIAL