Mr. J.A.B. Stewart,
The University of Sydney
Department of Industrial Relations
Hong Kong Desk,
Foreign & Commonwealth Office,
Whitehall,
London, S.W.1.
>
ENGLAND.
REC
REC!
13 JULA17
P/A 189
&
4th July, 1977
HKK 212/548/
193
*
The
Dear John,
You (anglarry Hurst) may be interested to have the two notes enclosed, which are by Prof. Dianne Yerbury, a labour lawyer from the Australian Graduate School of Management, who visited Hong Kong for me in May-June. The first, on the effects of the present trade union ordinance on the multiplication of small unions, has been sent up to Hong Kong for comment by the various people Prof. Yerbury consulted. The second, on minimum wage fixation and the present ordinance relating to it, has not: it was subsidiary to the main purpose of her enquiry anyway, and I don't want to set unwarranted speculations circulating there!
Incidentally, in your telex to me of 12 May (para 3) you asked me to get a certificate from my local tax office that I was not liable to UK taxation for the period of the ilong Kong enquiry's first stage, as preliminary to return of deductions made by MOD from honoraria deductions which aroused some indignation on my part, since I have been resident in Australia since last June and I imagine will be required also to declare such earnings here. Assuming "local tax office" referred to Cambridge, I asked my UK accountant to secure such a certificate from it. The tax office replied that I appeared have been a "servant of the Crown" and as such pear all earnings, even if overseas, were tax-deductible! This was a point I raised
with Janvrin on 6th June last year, before going to llong Kong, and was then assured just that this payment was to be regarded as a fee, and that it would be taxable under anded. normal, "civilian" conditions not under those relating to civil servants. So I
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take the argument (as well as the bureaucratic entanglements in which all this involves me) rather amiss. Anyway, I have told my accountant to try again; and to refer the tax office concerned to you for authentication of my status if necessary!
Talking (unpleasantly) of money, you asked me to defer presenting an account for the costs involved in my dash to London early in June including those in communication to re-arrange my affairs consequentially until receipts became available. On investigation, however, I'm afraid accumulation of such receipts seems not altogether possible. I enclose some for my accommodation in London (apart from a first night at the U.0.C.U.C., which Dr. Fosh paid for, since I had no English money, in return for my payment of a night's accommodation at the Lansdowne Club for her). But Trinity College, Oxford, and Churchill College, Cambridge, which each accommodated me for one night, will only present consolidated accounts for all my usage of them at the end of the academic year. Cable and Wireless, Hong Kong does not send receipts in the normal sense (though it may ultimately return the cable copies after payment to the various numbers from which they were phoned in Hong Kong). Overseas calls from Hong Kong are consolidated in my total 'phone account with the Asian Studies Centre; and calls from the UK were made where possible STD (or is it SID?), for which I receive only consolidated accounts again. However, I took a note of actual payments (for cables) and estimated charges (phone calls) at the time.
I attach a note, which includes figures for overseas cables or phone calls only. I do not include phone calls made within the UK since I cannot at this point recall which were personal and which were not. I imagine the sensible thing to do would be to pay me for 6 nights' subsistence, plus my fares in the UK. As regards overseas cables or phone calls, I would settle for two-thirds of the recorded cost, on the assumption that some part of the rearrangements concerned may have been merely personal, if nevertheless inevitable
I do hope you find all this as wearisome as I do.
Regards,
Sincerely,
HCA. Turner