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HAKK 121
616
香港下亞畢道
本署檔號 OUR REF.:
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(418)
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
* YOUR Ref.:
better to
Spohan
HIC
Copy attached.
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Remprey
Thank you
I would like
sel my reard (notet ut-te time
talk with WH-
Jess
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and
to
No
Thompson, Esq.,
Hong Kong & General Department,
Foreign and Commonwealth office, LONDON SW1A 2AH, England.
brean Thampra
25th November.
2.
12th December 1977
Reg.
Enter with pps. The Emputull
for Stewart.
that
It would seem the Governor's "rocket"
hees worlsed.
Thank you for your letter of
I have not so much been misquoted as quoted out of context. At short notice, and more or less off the cuff, I had to give a speech to open a training course for budding financial journalists. From the list of topics the organisers gave me, I chose the only one I could prepare in time : the
budget guidelines. I took as my general theme the purpose, and explained the way in which we change them, to be consistent with the rationale, as
rationale behind them, stressed they had a cautionary
circumstances change.
3.
I quoted the outcome of the textiles negotiations with the EEC as a changed circumstance which might cause us to alter our assumptions about the growth rate of public expenditure we could afford at today's tax rates. Elsewhere I had suggested the effect of changes in circumstances on these rates. deliberately did not juxtapose the two for it would hardly be proper for me to provoke a premature debate on the next budget.
4.
Incidentally, the Financial Secretary did not say to John Stewart that "there would be, in the event of a recession, an acceleration of the
What he did
building and public works programmes".
say was that we would make every effort to maintain · expenditure as planned on the programmes (the concept of steady progress: see paragraphs 102 - 108 of the· 1977 Budget Speech).
disappointing of steady progress :
I difference: are the Government after all trying to get away from ther counter cyclical role in tackling a recession?
Your
میرا سیستم
(D.G. Jeaffreson)
Secretary for Economic Services
I
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