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addition to the submissions mentioned in (a) the views
of all organisations who have made submissions to the Assessment
Office. All organisations concerned would be consulted to make
sure that they had no objection to publication.
any
The Commissioner prefers option b) because this would remove
basis for a complaint that we had been selective in our choice of
submissions to be reproduced. I f we agreed to (a) we would be
accused of selecting only establishment bodies, not truly
representative of Hong Kong opinion. Although we knew that the
main submissions were likely to be attached to the report this i s
the first intimation we have had of the likely length. The report itself is expected to be 80 pages of typescript.
7.
It would be physically possible for us to print the two extra
volumes if they were received by 15 November. The Foreign and
Commonwealth Office press could handle the first volume and have it
ready for publication by our projected date of 30 November. HMS O
could ensure that the other volume was also printed by this date.
The production of such bulky volumes at such short notice would
however put considerable strain on Our
report would be nearly twice as long as
on Rhodesia, itself a bulky document of
resources. The resulting
the Peace Commission report
some
250 pages.
The cost of printing one extra volume of 200 pages would be
approximately £5,250 and the cost of printing two extra volume s
8.
would be approximately £10,500 (assuming 750 copies of each volume).
It would be difficult to justify these extra costs in view of the
likely low level of interest in the UK in the detailed evidence
presented to the Assessment Office (as opposed to the conclusions of
the report). Furthermore the Assessment Office's own report will presumably summarise the evidence. Library and Record Department
are opposed to spending limited public funds in this way.
9.
If we
did decide to publish extra volumes of evidence to the
Assessment Office we would also need to reconsider our intention of
printing the reports of the Assessment Office and Monitoring Team
together in one White Paper. We would have to consider publishing
the Monitors' report separately for the sake of clarity.
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