CONFIDENTIAL
4
British ships because it would show that we were a "soft option". He did however think that we should have to recognise as a fall- back position that we would in practice have to take refugees picked up by British ships who could not be landed elsewhere. As for a quota for Hong Kong, he pointed out that so far they had only been able to select 400 refugees in Hong Kong who wanted to come to Britain. It was his impression that the refugees in Hong Kong felt that if they stuck things out they would eventually get to the United States. According to his reports, the accommodation in Hong Kong was not bad and refugees got a small allowance which enabled them to exist. He also thought that any on-going programme would be complicated by the commitment to take people off ships. He thought that the refugees in Malaysia were much worse off than those in Hong Kong. Moreover more seemed to want to come here from Malaysia. I said that conditions in Hong Kong must have deteriorated seriously over the last two weeks with refugees arriving at the rate of a thousand or more per day.
CONCLUSION
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11. I can see no alternative to the Foreign Secretary or/and the Lord Privy Seal taking the matter up again with both the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister. If they agree with the line taken in my minute of 3 June perhaps the best thing would be for the Foreign Secretary to minute the Prime Minister accordingly. Shall we draft?
8 June 1979
CONFIDENTIAL
Wen Collage.
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HA H Cortazzi
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