CO537-2187 — Page 12

and if we did get, which I personally would regard a$ worthless. Nobody can really foretell what course the negotiations may take if we ever do consent to talk on the subject with the Chinese. Accordingly, if we tie ourselves to such a doctrine, it may be years, or indeed decades, before we know where we

are.

I

Like Mr. Williams, I look at this not as a matter on which we are going to get a yes or no within some measurable distance of time, but as one in which we have got to take a certain view of the probabilities, that is we have got to take, and persuade the Treasury to take, a certain risk. should be prepared to argue quite forcibly that the risk is worth taking on the grounds that anyway we should probably not hand over the New Territories for quite a long time to come; that if we do hand them over before a reasonable return has been recovered on the capital expenditure, we shall have a fair chance of reserving special rights in respect of the airport; and, finally, even if we do not succeed in that, it will not be an unreasonable proposition that the successor government should take over a due proportion of the capital charges, which presumably will be in form a loan issued by the Hong Kong Government. I think it would be far better to argue on those lines than to pursue what I regard as a willow-the-wisp in the shape of a firm assurance that we are going to hang on to effective control of the airport, come what may in the shape of political or territorial changes.

!

If, however, it is thought that the actual facts of the position with regard to the airport need fuller elaboration, I should see no objection to that being done, either in the appropriate sub-sections of paragraph 12, or in an earlier paragraph.

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6. 2. 47.