0915A
PERSONAL
хи
D C Wilson, Esq, CMG
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London
SW1A 2AH
Дели Данд,
BANK OF ENGLAND See (43
Threadneedle Street
London
EC2R 8AH
30 April 1986
I. the
Please look t X. Grateful thee for draft ref. de Bak leel bruised I
вел
A mild protest to you about FCO telegram no.748 of 24 April to Hong Kong which begins "I am afraid that it has taken the Bank of England some time to muster their preliminary reactions to the bid by Lloyds Bank for the Standard Chartered Bank".
I
Since our apparent dereliction was thus broadcast urbi et orbi, made enquiries as to what had happened.
I am informed that Youde's telegram raising the matter was dated 1 April, but was received in the Bank only on 17 April. No doubt it should have been dealt with before the following weekend, but I suppose that the various parts of the Bank who had some input for the reply took their cue as to the urgency from the pace at which it had come from FCO. If it took a week to reach us, perhaps a week for Had it reached us us to work out the reply was not unreasonable. within 24 hours, I like to think you would have had our reply within 24 hours!
More seriously, this is just another example of sometimes quite serious delays which do take place in the transmission of diplomatic telegrams to us by your telegram examiners (although this being a personal telegram, it may have not been distributed by them). In any event, I should be grateful if you would give a prod in the appropriate quarter, which seems to be necessary from time to time to ensure that we keep reasonably up to date.
yam
Anday
1.
A D Loehnis
IN
HKK 102/1
3 0 MAY 1986
1AB 38
12
Page 225Page 226