requisitioned.
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SECRET
comment about
Your
defence and external relations strikes me
as
probably cont
the right approach to
the question whether it is legally correct
to exclude the Associated States
Article 5 a. Sept would implications.
from
I wonder whither Caribbean
wish to
consider practical
on these aspects are
However, my comments
strictly informal: para
I is my
sole substantive contribution.
Mitchell
23.12.1976
Pl. nee above minutes. Conten
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re
Dept. may wish to comment in WAS.
секёс
27/12.
тор
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CODE 18-77
دن
Mr Rushford. LEGAL ADVISERS
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Reference. HKCK 064/548/1
2.4.
REQUISITIONING OF SHIPS ORDER 1969
1.
I would be grateful for your comments on Mr Wickson's minute of 9 December (below):
2. My own, such as they are, are these: In the unlikely event of this Order ever being evoked, the Governor and Government of Hong Kong would most probably be in the process of dissolution. If China repossessed, there would subsequently be no funds in Hong Kong to meet bills for compensation from ship owners. Therefore,
if anybody paid, it would have to be the Government of the UK. I assume that the cost of meeting the ship owners' charges would fall to the Secretary of State, by whose authority the acts of delegation were carried out. This would presumably be the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The
fact that the Secretary of State for Trade had advised ship owners in the UK that their ships in the Far East were being requisitioned under the Order would not bring home to the Department of Trade any financial responsibilities for paying compensation.
20 December 1976
T J David
Hong Kong Department K 245 233 4777
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ARR
21.12