TNAG-0137-FCO40-173-Supply-of-political-and-economic-information-to-Hong-Kong-to-1969 — Page 18

Reference.....

with 12)

Mr. Carter

You asked about the state of play on this exercise. All the addressees of your minute of 26 June have now replied and there has been a general agreement that Hong Kong ought to receive the information requested by Maddocks.

The way now seems to be clear for the revised letter to posts suggested in your minute.

2*

The consensus of opinion is that the letter to posts should issue from the FCO, and that the posts should, in the first instance, be responsible for selecting items to be copied to Hong Kong. Smallman has suggested that this Department should also keep its eye on possible papers of interest to Hong Kong to some extent this happens already, but the suggestion is workable only when we know the existence of other problems of possible interest to Hong Kong, or if we see prints early enough for them to be useful. McKelvie's minute of 4 August suggests we should know in greater detail the sort of material the Hong Kong Government is interested in, but it is difficult to see the value of this when Maddocks clearly suggests, in paragraph 3 of his draft letter to posts, that the general is as important as the specific.

3. Do you wish me to redraft the letter to posta?

Mr. Murray

Mr. Stewart,

(I. R. Murray) Hong Kong Department 17 September, 1969

I have sent a short progress report to

Mr. Maddocks just in case he may be thinking that we

have overlooked his request.

2.

I should be grateful for a redraft of the letter and enclosure to (1) in the light of various comments that have been made by other departments and on the basis that it will issue as a FCO letter. On this latter point it is not quite clear to me in what form it would issue from here, whether as a semi-official letter (signed by Mr. Wilford?) to

Heads of Missions or as some form of circular

instruction. On balance I think I would prefer the former, but perhaps you would take advice from the relevant quarter on the suitability of the latter

medium.

6.3. Conser

17 September, 1969

(W. S. Carter) Hong Kong Department

OVER,