TNAG-0225-FCO40-261-Ministerial-meetings-on-internal-affairs-of-Hong-Kong-1970 — Page 29

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Rethon & Mr Land PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

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Mr. Wilford

Sir L. Mbason 47-

Miss Deas

Reference..

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next week

The letter to the Governor from the

Secretary of State

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A.R.

I first met the Governor at lunch at Fanling on

Thursday, 3 September. Mr. Whitelegge, Acting Deputy Commissioner for the New Territories, was also present. As this was my first meeting with the Governor I

deliberately refrained from raising any matter of consequence. The Governor did, however, express the view that there was too much "back seatdriving" from London. He talked about Mr. Royle's visit and gave a totally different impression from that given in his telegram on the subject. He explained that a meeting of the Legislative Council had been fixed for the day on which

Mr. Royle would be arriving and that he and all senior

officers of the Government, as well as the unofficial

members, would therefore be unable to be with Mr. Royle.

This was wrong but he very much hoped that Mr. Royle would

understand the position. He also said that some of those (he mentioned Sir Henry Lee) attending the Golf Tournament for the "Putra" Cup expected to be looked after personally by the Governor and that this also would cut down the time

he would have with Mr. Royle. He would, however, do his

best to ensure that Mr. Royle had a useful and enjoyable

visit.

2. The next day I attended the Governor's weekly meeting with Heads of Departments. After the meeting Mr. Holmes,

Acting Colonial Secretary, stayed behind and I then had my

first talk of consequence with the Governor. Fairly soon I mentioned the Secretary of State's letter, saying that

Mr. Royle had asked me to discuss this with the Governor.

When he realised that I was, as he put it, "in on this" the Governor let fly at me. He was clearly very upset

by the letter. It had come out of the blue and there

had been no prior reference to him. Nobody in London

could tell Hong Kong anything about the conduct of their

internal affairs. None of the proposals in the letter

was new; they had all been discussed ad nauseam in Hong Kong. As regards education, wewere out of date; the

and as proposal about housing was not practicable;

/ regards