CO537-2187 — Page 6

Mr. Bigg

Mr. J.B. Williams

Mr. J. B.

Since I prepared the revised draft paper on the Future of Hong Kong, at (79), which is now with the Foreign Office for consideration, I have been giving some further consideration to the question of the difficulty of arriving at a decision on the question of the construction of an international airport, on account of the

uncertainty of our tenure of the New Territories. This point is already touched on in the revised draft paper

and is covered to some extent by Conclusion (b) in paragraph 14. I think, however, that it would be desirable to amplify the point and explain the reason why it is desirable to take a decision now that continued control of the installations in the New Territories would be an essential condition of our agreement to the prematurė termination of the lease, from the point of view of the airport question. I attach the draft of

a new paragraph to be inserted in the paper. I should be grateful for any comments you may have on this paragraph, which I should like to get over to the Foreign Office as soon as possible.

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4.2.47.

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of the existing para 14 fbs, C.q, the reference

the "foregoing paragraph",

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Mr. Caine

I have very carefully considered these papers and although, of course, I entirely agree with Mr. Mayle that it is most important that the consideration of an adequate air field in Hong Kong should not be held up by the political question discussed on this file, I venture to wonder whether we should not do better by adopting rather different tactics.

As I understand it the position reached in the discussions between the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office regarding the Chinese claims may be summed up as follows:-

(i) We are agreed that it would be undesirable to raise the Hong Kong question" with the Chinese Government.

(ii) From a material point of view, British

possession of Hong Kong has considerable

/advantages