GOVERNMENT HOUSE
HONG KONG
TOP SECRET & PERSONAL
16th April 1969
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Thank you for your letter No. HKK 4/1
of 28th March about J.K. Wright's visit.
I had a talk with him before he left but found it rather difficult to understand what he was driving at or how it related to the main problem. He seemed to want us to collect a lot of economic statistics that might be useful in themselves, but I could not see how they could be of significant use in the particular circum- stances. We cannot, and could not, manage our economy here to any significant extent: and while the information he suggested we ought to have might illuminate what was happening to some extent, the practical use that could be made of it would seem, at first sight, to be very minimal. In any case, it would be little use for forward planning in any detail: the really important factors in the possible situation are largely unguessable until they arise.
and
But I do not want to sound too negative. As you know, I have always pressed the view that cool and calm deliberation, if it doesn't dis- entangle every knot, at least loosens it a bit; certainly the problems concerned need more thought in due course. I just wonder whether Wright's way of going about it (so far as I understood him correctly) is likely to be the most productive one: and I hope this intervention is not holding up progress. I rather got the idea it might be.
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Your ever David.
W.S. Carter Esq., CVO,
Hong Kong Department,
Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London, S.W.1.
TOP SECRET & PERSONAL
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY No.51 - 6 AUG 1969
HKK 4/1
42
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