Hong Kong Department
MUA 10/393/1
RECEIVED IN ARCHIVES No. 3
21 March, 1969
(36)
(30)
उन
2-APR 1953
MUA10/393/1
It seems from your personal telegram No.228 that you found my ow No.181 less than convincing. I must therefore make another attempt in a letter which will probably be long, to engage your support for the sort of assessment on which the Treasury is, I am afraid, insisting. llowever, I am conscious of the need to malo haste. John Moreton brought back from his visit to you the impression that we had rather more than the two months you now give before a decision has to be taken. But whatever the deadline, I realise that it is close.
2.In your telegram No.227 you say the issue between us is the question whether H.M.C. is willing to acknowledge by way of a loan the value of Kai Tak Airport to British civil aviation. There can, of course, be no question but that Kal Tak is of considerable value to us; I enclose a copy of that part of our submission to the Treasury which the Board of Trade prepared by way of a departmental view on this very question. In my personal telegran culled the Board's quantification of U.K. civil aviation interest generous and I think you will agree that this is the case. I said in my telegram No. 181 that the Board of Trade were now further quantifying their interest and it may even be como consolation to you to know that they too have been asked by the Treasury to measure more precisely the extent of British self-interest, 0.g. the value of the traffic rights gained elsewhere in return for rights granted in Hong Kong. I fancy that you are more often at the asking end of this sort of exercise than the answering, but I am
·certain in any case that I do not have to explain how vozy hard to please is any Treasury asked to spend (or lend at generous rates of Interest) £6m. on the grounds that it is worth it. I cannot say that the Board of Trade was any moro pleased than you at being asked for more detail their reaction as a matter of fact was much the same ac yours but I believe they are co-operating even though they must undoubtedly coo the same substantial danger (to their own virtually non- existent funds) in building up a case based on the benefits to the UK. as you have seen from your end in an assessment of the benefits to Hong Kong. I should adã that in my view there is no question of the Treasury being sceptical of the advantages to the U.K. in these extensions although there is always someone in a Treasury whose job it is to act unconvinced but clearly they consider they need to havo those advantages fully stated and so far as possible quantified.
3. When I told you in my personal telegram that I had not failed to emphasise the importance of U.K. civil aviation interest in our discussions on this project, I was understating the case. The fact
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Sir John Cowperthwaite, KBE., CMG., Financial Secretary,
HONG KONG
/ is
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