Mr Larmour
Done
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Yes please
SECRET AND PERSONAL
ви
RECEIVED IN
REGISTRY No. 60
cc
PS to PUS Mr O'Keeffe
Mr Male
mv
Mr Lipsey Mr Galsworthy
Crowe
11 JUN 1976
RS
5093/393/1
HONG KONG PLANNING PAPER
11
130
11 Some time
6
Some time whe
have time
you
you
I could tell the background. It liths as if the steering ctter and/or
Planning Cttee will
Love to
again
go over this
Tower field 24/2
1. I had a long meeting in Hong Kong on 21 May with the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, Mr Donald and the Private Secretary about the planning paper. I attach a summary record of this meeting as prepared by the Private Secretary. The most important point is my agreement in principle to receiving Sir Denis Roberts in London in the week beginning 7 June, to try to agree a redraft of the paper. This seems to me a helpful idea particularly as he will bring with him some suggested revisions. I said that we would do our best to take full account of these but I did not, of course, commit us to accepting them. I was less happy about the proposal that the Colonial Secretary should bring with him a member of the Financial Secretary's department to help in the redrafting. I can see real difficulties about this unless the officer selected is a reasonable man. I made it clear that Mr Haddon Cave, the Financial Secretary, or Mr Jones, the Deputy Financial Secretary, would only complicate the issues. The Governor fully accepted this.
2. The record does not bring out properly the points I made about the recent budget. Nor does it record the points which I made about the background to the paper and the nature of concerns at home. These did, I think, however, go home as in subsequent meetings with officials and unofficials the Governor, although not yet fully con- vinced about the extent of political/trade union pressures, had clearly moved some way towards our position. There can be no doubt about his difficulties. Many officials and unofficials are not yet ready to accept the need for an increase in the pace of reform. Most of the arguments used against change were pretty specious. Interestingly the most outspoken advocate of change among the officials was Mr Cater who sounded a distinctly social democratic note. Mr Jones, in the absence of Mr Haddon Cave, was orthodoxly conservative to a provocative degree. Among unofficials Mr Bembridge of Swires was generally helpful. I stressed throughout
that the problem was essentially one of degree and timing.
3.
There are going to be real difficulties over the revision of the paper.
The Governor is fighting hard for the status quo and is sensitive to any crticism. For instance, when I inadvertently referred to current social welfare arrangements as reminiscent of the 'poor law' he seemed much offended. However, he was ready to
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