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borderline cases, or where the topic is not covered by
Examples where your records are concerned
the guidelines.
would be political and other papers relating to Australia,
UK/USA relations, Kashmir etc. In such instances, the
normal practice is to send a photocopy of the document for
scrutiny, a practice which greatly speeds up the clearance
process.
4.
Your present problem is concerned with political and
other reports copied to the Hong Kong Government for
information. These should have been destroyed as
ephemeral (and duplicate) soon after they were received.
In our view, this should now be done. The alternative
is for you to copy each paper, or at least any which
appear to you to be doubtful, to us. We hold no master
list of individual despatches and comparable papers released,
and we should have to call our files back from the Public
Record Office to check firstly whether each paper had been
selected for permanent preservation and, if so, whether
it had been opened to public inspection.
If papers have
not been preserved, we should have to put them through a
sensitivity review which could not, I am afraid, take
priority over the work that we have in hand for the annual
release of more recent records. You will understand, I am
sure, that I would prefer not to have to commit my scarce
resources to the considerable effort that would be
required of us to clear your 'for information' material.
5. If the preceding paragraphs appear unhelpful, I can at
least assure you that they are born of long, and bitter,
experience!
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