SECRET AND PERSONAL
Review) to see if, when the time comes for their discontinuance, they could be modified (without losing their effectiveness) to take account of some of the criticisms that have been levelled at them by such
bodies as the Hong Kong Bar Association, As you know one of these criticisms concerns the absence of any provision requirin a detainee to be informed of the reasons for his detention, We know you do this in practice. If (as we are at present advised) other Colonial Emergency legislation specifically provides for this, would you consider whether you could follow suit?
www.
7. i have been following recent developments on the Tunnel with
some fascination. French intervention, no more benevolent than you
would expect it to be, may at least serve the purpose of bringing
matters to a head. This new factor, together with your political arguments, enabled us and the Board of Trade to induce ECGD to have
another look at their terms. It is our understanding thất the French
have still not decided what their terms are going to be the latest rather unwelcome information was that they would not do so before
March - but there are indications that they are prepared to be more generous in some directions (guarantees, as you instance) than we are;
although less so in others, notably interest rates. We know no more
about the American and Swiss offers of finance than the bare
indications Clague has given to Hannam. British finance ought to
have the edge on them all and we all hope that it will. The revised FCGD terms as they now stand (after clarification in recent exchanges of the manner in which the guarantees will operate) seem to us
reasonable enough and we hope that, given the advantage to the Tunnel Company of being able to take up with Costains where they left off
last year, they will carry the day. flowever, we realise that, in
this Dutch auction that is now developing, they might well be bettered,
in which case we could well lose the day. I have asked John Moreton to go into the position with you when he comes out later this week,
I wish I could bring myself to believe that the Tunnel project is really worth-while from Hong Kong's point of view: its merits and relevance seem to me highly questionable. Nonetheless 1 agree that, if it has to go ahead, it would be much better that it should do so
with British support than French, because of what people in Hong Kong
would read into the situation if Britain loses the project.
SECRET AND PERSONAL
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