3
from the appropriate authorities. He had said that the problem was not insuperable. I said that, while we shared the view that this was essentially a practical
If there
oblem, it was natural that the perspective in Hong Kong should be rather different.. It was here that housing, It was educational and other plans had to be revised. entirely natural that there should be concern when planning for the future, since a graph showing the present trend of I added that short immigration was a steep upward curve. visits were never a problem but the statistics provided no
Those evidence to show that this was a significant factor. who came stayed and were often in the child-bearing age group.
7.
Mr Pan commented that the numbers coming across were controlled. Hong Kong immigration officials would have told us of the severe crowding at Shum Chun. were no controls, the numbers coming would be very much higher. Mr Tan said that many people asked to come to Hong Kong and it was very difficult to tell them that they could not do so. Hong Kong had its problems but there were problems on the Chinese side too. I said that those who really wished to go on to an overseas destination could be told that they should first have a visa. However, such people were a
Mr Tan agreed. Small proportion of the total arrivals. (There was no indication throughout this discussion that the Chinese expected numbers to come down in the immediate future. It was also significant that there were several references to the views of Mr Wang K'uang, noe to those of Mr Li Chu-sheng.)
Broadcasting Frequencies
8.
Mr Tan
I said to Mr Tan that, as I had mentioned earlier, the Postmaster General was planning to make arrangements for Radio Television Hong Kong and Hong Kong Commercial Broadcasting to use new frequencies following a WARC meeting in Geneva in 1974. The new frequencies would be 621 and 810 kHz. However, this would only be possible if transmitters in Kwangtung also planned to change their frequencies. It would be useful to know whether this was a practical problem which the suggested delegation from the Department of Posts and Telecommunications of Kwangtung would be able to discuss if they visited Hong Kong. said he would report this. He asked if it was possible yet to indicate dates for the suggested visit which would suit the Post Office. I said that at present October was a very difficult month, as was November, because of the absence of key technical people. It would not be possible to suggest convenient dates until more was known about how the delegation proposed to divide its time between the Post Office, Cable & Wireless and the Hong Kong Telephone Company; and also some indication of the specific areas which they would wish to discuss with the Post Office.
CONFIDENTIAL
/contd...