ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE
deal with each of the Dependent Territories, and if so what is in it for them? Do they have an obligation towards these five officers and if so is it so great as to cause them to pay us handsomely for taking it off their hands? Or is it that we are able, through HKGD, to control how Dependent Territories recruit to senior posts in their administrations - if so, why is a deal over the residual HMOCS necessary in the first place? I should have thought that the Dependent Territories with enough money to pay all or most of the salaries etc of their senior administrators could recruit wherever they wished; and while those more dependent on funding from us or the ODA are in a weaker position it does not follow that we can use that weakness to insist on jobs for DS officers. On the other hand, it is surely in the nature of things likely that DS officers will often prove well qualified for these administrative posts. If our manpower is sufficient to enable us to second people, we shall no doubt get a large share; and if it is not, there is no point in striking a deal in the first place.
5.
is
It
assumed in the minuting (eg paragraph 5 (c) of Mr Bennett's minute of 22 April and paragraph 5 of Miss Brett Rooks' minute of 18 May) that administrators working for the Hong Kong Government can be. excluded from this proposal. . I am not sure how in the longer term this is to be done. In effect, what we are saying is that, when HMOCS officers some way short of the retiring age no longer have a home to go to the DS will take them in. Hong Kong officers have a home at present but how do we intend to prevent this precedent being appealed to if the Chinese take over Hong Kong, and give the colonial administrators a polite thank-you and a one-way ticket home?
6.
The papers I have seen on this subject suggest strongly to me that the best thing to do is to leave it strictly alone. I should however be glad to be assured that there are good answers to the questions I have raised.
!
11 June 1981
Cc:
1
Miss Mr Goulden (PSD)
Brett Rooks (HKCD)
Adiran Thove
A Ċ Thorpe
PPD
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