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Mr. Trafford Smith (through Mr. Higham
I must confess that I am a little in the dark as to what the correct procedure is here.
I assume that we shall be receiving in due course the conclusions of the B.D.C.C. meeting at Singapore, when no doubt the various views expressed in No. 14 on this file were considered jointly with the Far Eastern Chiefs-of-Staff.
It
You will recollect that the Cabinet (reference CM(48) 80th conclusions of the 13th December, 1948) "(4) invited the Foreign Secretary to con- sider, in consultation with the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Minister of Defence, what further steps could be taken to strengthen our position in the Colonial territories in Asia." appears to me that, at some stage, a further paper will have to be put to the Cabinet informing them what action has been taken in this matter. I mentioned this to Mr. Scarlett at the Foreign Office yesterday, and understood that it seemed to him that the appropriate moment for doing this would be when we had received the B.D.C.C. con- clusions. He is going to look into the matter and let me know what the Foreign Office view is. It is, in any case, important that we should get
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