*
Yes. But
my view to some extend based on on his avowed viability to barn Concentrated work early date.
at am This is noth regarded
essential
770.
23
Mr. Paskin and I saw Mr. Coleman on
Tuesday. this week. He had then read the report on Hong Kong Harbour by Sir David Owen and had obviously become interested in it. He is admittedly (like the rest of us) in need of a holiday - he has been in Iraq now for 7 years and largely under pretty trying conditions, not only climatically but politicially also. The three year contract ends at the end of this year and he was normally expecting to be able to come on leave in July and not return. However he has come prematurely for a visit mainly in connection with our Hong Kong project. (He would anyhow have been going back to Iraq for a time in August.)
He would definitely like to take on the Hong Kong project and get it started but would prefer not to be committed for more than a year or eighteen months.
He
His experience and special abilities are not questioned. He made a distinctly more favourable impression on me as regards physical and mental condition than on his previous visit here. and I think Mr. Paskin shares my view. has the prospect of a further year's contract with the Iraq Government which he thinks he ought to accept unless we offer him the Hong Kong post, in which case he would consider it his duty to come to us for this essential work in British territory. Mr. Paskin and I have since discussed it with Mr. MacDougall and Mr. Rouse of the Hong Kong Planning Unit and we are now in agreement with the idea that Mr. Coléman should be asked
(1) To act as Consultant for Hong Kong Harbour
Trust plans for the present.
(2) He should be provisionally selected to
undertake the functions of Chairman of the embryo Hong Kong Port Trust as soon as he is available and is needed. For this purpose
we should postulate 1st January, 1946 as the probable date he would be needed. Operational developments in the autumn and winter may make it either possible to defer the appointment for & few weeks so that he may have such leave as possible, or, alternatively, may make it necessary for us to ask him to come to the work straight away as soon as he is released from Iraq in November.
(3) During his period as Consultant, we should pay him & fee. As from the date of full-
time appointment we should offer him the salary already mentioned (to which Treasury have agreed).
(4) We should select as soon as possible a full- time Secretary of the embryo Trust who would in form be engaged by the Colonial Office. We must rely on the M.W.T. for suggesting the names of suitable candidates for this post but
we