1989-06-12 19:40 COI RADIO TECH SERVICES.
01 928 8607 P.14
TRANSCRIPT C: SELECT COMMITTEE ON HONG KONG 12 JUNE 1989
-13-
MR.
IVAN LAWRENCE:
Suppose the British Government were to say: "All
right! We will guarantee that 100,000 Hong Kong Chinese
could, if the worst comes to the worst, be allowed to
would that not be a very problem
settle in Britain!
making statement?
Would that not be likely to
destabilise Hong Kong rather more than the present
situation where we recognise a moral responsibility as
widely as we can, as sympathetically as we can, but do not
put any fitures on it?
SIR DAVID WILSON:
Put as you have put it, I would think yes indeed
because it has nothing to it; it has paither the
assurance that you can actually go, nothing in your hand,
plus a very restricted number with nobody knowing whether
they were in the number or out of the number,
have nothing going for that sort of a solution.
so you would
MR.
TED ROVLANDS:
You say many people would not exercise that right.
Would a compromise be that one would give a general right
of entry but the British Government would reserve the
right in any month or quarter of any year to actually
determine the numbers so that for the people the insurance
policy stays an insurance policy?