the petitioners want, but we must certainly, try it.
HR Fanlough
2/1/18
Mr. Mayle.
13
This is a petition and should go up to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of state. The petition is signed by ten European members of the Hong Kong Police Inspectorate who were recruited from various United Kingdom Police Forces after the war. The Governor says it represents the views, not only of the signatories, but of all the European members of the Inspectorate so recruited. Mr. Rees-Williams will be particularly interested since he wrote to the Secretary of State on the 5th July 1947 on behalf of one of the officers concerned, Mr. R. G. Parsons (11 and 12 on 64346/C.R.). Mr. Parsons is not a signatory of this petition, but is a post-war recruit from a Ù.K. Police Force and will therefore be affected by the results of the petition. The main burden of Mr. Parsons' letter on 64346 C. R. was his personal financial difficulties and the results of the Salaries Commission (which I have summarised at the end of Mr. Nicholls' note 39 on this file) should go a considerable way to help him.
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As regards the petition I think we should accept the Governor's recommendations, as Mr. Nicholls proposes. I agree also that we should write to the Home Office and telegraph to the Governor as is proposed. I have added "Borough Police Forces" to "County Police Forces" wherever relevant in both cases and have amended the letter to the Home Office to read less as though we expected the answer "No"- though I share C. S. D.'s apprehensions on this point. I have also altered paragraph 4 of the draft to the Home Office to clarify the point that a transfer to Hong Kong preserving pension rights is impossible and that that is why we suggest secondment. (I have read this paragraph over to Mr. Nicholls who agrees that this is the position). I have had a clean copy of the draft prepared.
"
It is for consideration whether if it is agreed that the Governor's recommendations should be accepted, we should not say so now. This would mean that on points 2 and 3 of paragraph 3 of the Governor's despatch we should ask him to reply to the petitioners as he recommends in paragraph 7 of the despatch (subject to the amendment in his telegram No. 1814 at 38), while informing them that on point 1 we are consulting the Home Office. This might raise undue hopes. Even however if we waited for the Home Office reply and this were not immediately discouraging we should still not be in a much better position to say anything because it is not the Home Office, but various local authorities, who will, I presume, have the last word. Correspondence with the local authorities will take a long time (whether it is done direct or through
the