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Draft Letter from
Commercial waanmo
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MK6131
Ref: CRE:17516/60.
R. Goldsmith. Esq.. to Sir E. Melville.
Copy to: Carter )F.C.O. Whitehead)
Thank you for your letter of 3rd December about the position of Hong Kong representation at Geneva.
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2. There was an exchange of telegrams with the Governor of Hong Kong in September about this, copies of which I enclose. Hong Kong's position as a separate signatory of the Long Term Arrangement makes it more appropriate for the voice of Hong Kong to be heard at the Cotton Textiles Committee than it might be in other bodies, speaking in somewhat different tones from that of the United Kingdom. But even there, and even if genuine differences of view remain, we doubt if it would be in Hong Kong's interests to take any line publicly which would positively embarrass the U.K., and hope that consultation on the spot could avoid any risk of that happening. We therefore hope the position indicated in the telegrams could be maintained.
3. On the particular point you mention (the one dealt with in para 7 of the enclosure to my minute of 27 November to Roderick Abbott) I would hope that serious difficulty should
not arise. Our recent discussions with Wellenstein and Ernst
made it clear that the roll-in of cottons and non-cottons would
be quite unacceptable to the E.E.C. They are not at present prepared to contemplate any extension of restraints to non- cottons except on specific items and subject to international vetting. Roll-in would also be unacceptable to the Japanese, as made clear in Roderick Abbott's letter to me reporting discussion with the Japanese on 24 November. Quite apart therefore from the reasons for which roll-in would be unaccept-
able to us, Hong Kong would clearly achieve nothing by pursuing this line, and we would hope that David Jordan and Derek Jones can be persuaded of this.
4. The only other point on which difficulty might arise seems to be the Hong Kong desire to see Article of the L.T.A. abolished. For reasons which will be explained in the Brief for the resumed C.T.C.Session, we do not think Hong Kong would gain from this in practice, and we would not ourselves be
no tomarons pour French whither
покасно
Art II were abolidied or cot.
//prepared
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