Oh!
Mr. H.
rst,
2
Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London.
2nd March, 1977
Moreover, she has certainly done several weeks' work in the UK (and apart from her two spells in Hong Kong) in computing the two surveys' results. In decency, the least the F.C.0./0.D.M. could do (apart from compensating her excess expenditure) would be to make up her pay for August to the full rate. I raised this point in my letter 2 to O'Keefe of 6th September, but got no reply to it from Stewart.
b) Please advise the O.D.M. that I am not liable for U.K. taxation on earnings made outside the UK for the period during which the Hong Kong study was conducted, since I shall be abroad beyond the time interval which such liability requires, and am subject to Australian tax at full rate (as the copy, also enclosed, of my last Sydney fortnightly pay-slip, shows). Moreover, my British National Insurance contributions are being maintained by Cambridge University during my leave from that institution. These two deductions should therefore be returned to me.
Incidentally, the Governor asked during my short final visit to Hong Kong in February, to make a rough estimate for another round to bring the draft to the point at which it might contain specific proposals for labour reforms. I provisionally put the figure at $HK68,000, or about £8,500. Total expenditure to date has pre- ?X sumably been about 16,500 (including my and br. Fosh's 'excesses"). I note that the combined total, allowing for the subsequent British devaluation and some inflation in Hong Kong, would be close to the figure of £20,000 which I quoted as a rough minimum of total cost to O'Keefe in April last.
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As regards the report itself, I am at time of writing still without a copy of the amended/extended version, and Hong Kong had only the first draft as I sent it on 31st December. I had a few minor comments from the Acting Labour Commissioner or his staff, but nothing fundamental in the way of criticism beyond their desire that I progress the study to the point of detailed proposals. I had not at that time, however, the reports of my two Australian post-graduates, who have (as I told you, I think) been for two months working, respectively, on labour disputes and on civil service labour relations; these would certainly strengthen or modify my ob- servations in several respects. After review, I propose to send these latter reports up to Hong Kong for comment, and to be taken with my own. There is also a good deal more to be got out of the material arising from Dr. Fosh's second survey. And I · should be glad to have any comment arising from my report's consideration in London.
In other words, so far as I am concerned, my own report (with its three appendices) is still very much an interim draft in an ongoing study, and a note arising from work in progress. It is liable to change in any final version and should not as yet be taken to represent final conclusions. I do not know quite how the F.C.0. will handle it from now, but I should emphatically wish the personal reservations in this paragraph to be attached to any circulation of or release from the draft.
I rather gathered, from my discussion with the Governor last month, that there may be some proposal for a "third round" to bring matters near a conclusion. I made it clear, I hope, that I should be unwilling to undertake any such commitment unless my colleagues and myself were compensated for our necessary excess expenditure on the previous rounds.
But I should particularly say that I now understand your committee is not meeting until April (which makes the additional effort and expense we undertook to provide a report for an earlier meeting retrospectively enraging). If I were to attempt to get together for this a team comparable to last August's one for any likely time in the near future, or to make personal arrangements here and elsewhere to undertake such a commitment, I doubt very much I could do so if a decision were deferred till after that meeting.
Best wishes,
Sincafels
H.. Turner
P.S. As against my personal excess expenditure of some $120,100, I hold about $HK7,700
from allocations not fully use, pipiourse, an show, by my accounts.