CONFIDENTIAL
Reference
12. Question 25: We have for a long time been asking the Governor to keep under review the possibility of accelerating the release of further confrontation prisoners. There is a difference of view between ourselves and the Far Eastern Department over this issue. Our information is that three of the confront- ation prisoners are sick men, and I think that we would go along with the Far Eastern Department in pressing the Governor to release these three men, provided that the type of crimes for which they were sentenced were not too heinous. The Far Eastern Department recently wrote to the Political Adviser asking for particulars of the illnesses from which the three men in question were suffering. However, I understand from Mr Appleyard that the reply which he got from the Assistant Political Adviser was totally unhelpful and unforthcoming on this point.
13. Question 27: This is another matters which has been exercising us for a considerable time. More visits could certainly help to paper over the cracks. I do not know what Mr Maddocks means by "quasi-diplomatic missions", but if this is a reference to the British Senior Trade Commissioner's office in Hong Kong, then I would most certainly not support the idea. Relations between that office and the Hong Kong Government could hardly be described as cordial. The strained relations between Hong Kong and London are, I suggest, due to the fundamental stresses and strains inherent in a situation where a highly sophisticated and economically flourishing territory has to be governed under a Crown Colony Const- itution. Hong Kong is a contradiction in terms.
(A. W. Gaminara)
21 July, 1970
CONFIDENTIAL
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