CO129-607-6 Police Department- Indian Section 11-1-1948 - 7-4-1949 — Page 20

Pol. 10657/49.

20

United Kingdom High Commissioner

for the United Kingdom,

Chamber of Commerce Building,

Wood Street, Karachi.

Dear Algy,

We feel that you may be interested to hear of a recent decision of the Government of Pakistan with regard to recruitment of their nationals for Police and other similar duties in Hong Kong.

2.

The case had its genesis in March last year when Creagh Coen of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested orally that the Pakistan Government would probably be favourably disposed to continue the policy adopted by the pre-partition Government of India of permitting the recruitment of members of the Hong Kong Police and Jail Departments fro this part of the world. We passed the information on to the Hong Kong Government, who promised to bear it in mind.

3.

Subsequently, in October, 1948, the Hong Kong Government asked us to pursue the matter further with the Pakistan Government and informed us that, provided the latter Government agreed, they hoped to recruit some 150 persons for the Police Force and a further 100 persons as warders in the Prisons Department. We therefore approached the Pakistan Government but were informed on the 23rd October that the case would have to be submitted to the Cabinet and that this would involve some delay.

4. Pressure of work prevented the cabinet from taking up the matter until the second week in January, but our unofficial information was always to the effect that no objection by the Pakistan Government to this recruitment was to be expected.

5.

It was therefore with co siderable surprise that we learnt, first unofficially and then officially, that the request for permission to recruit had been turned down flatly by the

/Government

H. A. F. Rumbold, Esq., C.I.E.,

Political Department,

Commonwealth Relations Office,

Downing Street, S.W.1.

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