CO537-2188 — Page 23

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Sir Thomas Lloyd (Kough the horne-way)

It deals

1.

I have agreed with Mr. Roberts-Wray the attached draft savingram to the Governor. first with Sir Mark Young's reply (No.19) on the points of detail arising out of his constitutional proposals which were referred to him, and then goes on to discuss other points which it seems desirable to raise with the Governor at this stage, mainly from the point of view of the publication of the despatch and the reply which is to be sent to it.

2. For convenience of reference I have prepared (at 2) a summary of these points, numbering 28 in all. I have inserted in this summary my views on the various points. It does not, however, include the further points raised by Mr. Roberts-Wray in his minute of the 14th April, but Mr. Roberts-Wray has agreed that his points are adequately dealt with in the draft savingram, insofar as it is necessary to deal with them at this stage.

3. The most important,points are those referred to in paragraphs 1, 2, 3, and 47(sub-paragraphs IX XI, XII and XV) of the draft savingram. If I may offer the suggestion, the summary at (24) will be useful for reference purposes in considering these points. A further passage in the draft savingram to which I should draw attention is paragraph, sub-paragraph XII which reverses the previous dakh that the audit of accounts should be carried out by commercial audit and not by the Colonial Audit Department. As you will see from the summary, the Treasury have taken a strong line on this point. I don't think it is worth while fighting them on it.

4. It will be necessary to let the Foreign Office and the Treasury see the savingram before it goes out. I thought it desirable to submit the draft before referring it to those Departments, as it does deal with a number of important points which, when the correspondence is published, might well be the subject of Press enquiries or Parliamentary Questions.

5. As time is getting short, if we are to try to get the Governor's despatch and our reply published before Sir Mark Young leaves Hong Kong on or about the 12th May, I would propose to send a copy of the draft savingram, as soon as its terms have been settled here, to Mr. MacDougall, explaining that it is under reference to the Foreign Office and Treasury, but that he might like to have this advance copy to be considering the various points, in view of the time factor.

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6. I presume that when the correspondence is published in Hong Kong, it will be desirable to make it available to Members of Parliament here (? by placing a copy of the Governor's despatch and of the Secretary of State's reply thereto in the Library of the House). I suggest that we should also take this opportunity to try to get some publicity for the constitutional changes in Hong Kong. It will be recalled that the Secretary of State's announcement in the House on the subject was somewhat obscured, for publicity purposes, by the Gold Coast murders.

/7. Finally,