XN000022-1980-06-18 — Page 17

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The necessary action has been taken at the London end, but the Air

Transport Licensing Authority in Hong Kong has so far licensed only

three services a week by Cathay and four by BCAL, and has turned down

Laker's application.

"It may well be that these airlines will wish to make a fresh

application to the Hong Kong authority. How the Hong Kong authority

determines any such new application is of course matter for them.

But

I would make just one point. In rejecting the original Laker proposal

that all the applicants should be licensed, on the grounds that this

was contrary to the air transport regulations in Hong Kong, the Hong

and I quote their words Kong authority observed --

application 'fits in with the general economic approach which has made

Hong Kong what it is today'.

——

that the Laker

"Quite 50. If there are further hearing in Hong Kong, the

Hong Kong Government will presumably give evidence. In that case I

would ask them to consider whether the solution which I have adopted

does not reflect exactly the philosophy on which Hong Kong's economic

success has been based, and whether some way cannot be found, consistently

with their own legal procedures, to transform that philosophy into fact,

in the present case.

"Civil aviation is the current issue in relations between

Britain and Hong Kong, and I make no apology for having devoted the

greater part of my speech this evening to it. The decision I have

taken, although it will no doubt be opposed in some quarters, should

result in bringing Hong Kong and Britain closer together, and in

enabling more people to travel from one to the other and to get to

know each other better. These objectives we all share. As long as

there are equal opportunities to compete, governments should think

long and hard before they prevent travellers from having access to a

/wider range