p.a. su
su Tang
48
CHARITY COMMISSION
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Reed
27/x1
Iain Macleod Esq
a
Legal Advisers Branch
Foreign & Commonwealth office
London SW1A 2AH
SW1A
RE
Ако
AKO 28677
C/ DEC 1989
16 November 1989
en mentah.coMESANE HEAL
Dear MacLeod,
SIR S K TANG : CHARITABLE TRUST
Thank you for your letter of 10 November which reached me yesterday. I have read quickly through the papers accompanying your letter and am glad that they have been referred to this office albeit somewhat late in the day. grateful for your helpful summary.
I am
You rightly refer to the increasingly muddled state of the matter, and, without wishing to make too much of the point. think that if your colleagues had done as you have when Mr Wood advised them 1986 much of the later and confusing correspondence could have been avoided. I do recognise the difficulties which arise when one tries to sort out the priorities but would emphasise that it is the aim of this office to help rather than hinder.
My swift survey of your papers leaves me agreeing wholeheartedly with David Edwards' views expressed in his manuscript note of 10 May last. My immediate impression (subject to the outcome of your enquiries in Hong Kong) is that this is clearly a charitable trust: there was clearly intended to be a permanent endowment to be used for charitable purposes (letter of 10 March). That, in my view is enough to prevent the whole disappearing into the Consolidated Fund: the matter does not rest on Treasury agreement not to claim it. There is clear evidence of a "general charitable intention". It is also significant in my view that the letter refers to "charitable purposes in the United Kingdom" and to the acceptance of the gift "by Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom".
I do not understand Mr Leeks' doubts expressed in his letter of 27 April 1989 to Mrs Morris. The donor's intention is quite clearly expressed so far as it went. Unless there are overriding Hong Kong reservations, I believe that the money
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