HKK 25/3
CONFIDENTIAL
•
3 April, 1970.
In a separate letter I have given you some idea of our thinking and the action we are taking in regard to the staffing of the DTAD and of the dependent territories. In this letter I would like to turn to some of the matters of detail that are exercising us in considering your suggestion for an exchange of staff between the Diplomatic Service and the Hong Kong Administration. In so doing, I shall be picking up some of the points you made in your 1 Phe letter of 16 April, 1969 to Arthur Galsworthy.
2.
We take your point about the need for those who will man the dependent territory desks in the FCO having some practical experience of colonial administration and this has been very much in the forefront of our minds in our DTAD staffing exercise. At the same time we have to bear in mind that, for career reasons, Diplomatic Service officers may not wish to be (and perhaps we cannot afford to let them be) specialists in this field. It might therefore help if while gaining their experience of colonial administration they were to be employed in a capacity which might also enlarge their general experience in a way that would be useful upon return to diplomatic duties. Leaving aside the Political Adviser's office an ideal department from this point of view would be the Commerce and Industry Department, with its extensive overseas contacts and its constant preoccupation with international trade problems. We also see the Finance and Economic branches of the Secretariat as offering useful specialised experience of general application; and, to a lesser extent, the Defence Branch. For Chinese-speakers (although, as I understand it, you are by no means restricting your proposal to these) the Department of the Secretary of Home Affairs might offer a suitable combination of local administrative experience and the opportunity to maintain (or improve upon) linguistic proficiency despite the problem of dialects./ We should be glad to have your views and suggestions on these ideas for the posting of Diplomatic Service Officers.
3.
Equally, we would like to know your views about the posting of Hong Kong officers in the FCO. I should say at the outset that we consider there are very good reasons for maintaining the rule established in the Colonial Office "beachcomber" arrangements whereby a Colonial Service officer was not posted to the Department handling the affairs of the territory from which he came. This rule did not, of course, preclude an officer from serving in other "geographical" departments or in one of the functional departments where he might be concerned in handling a particular aspect of his
/Colony's
Sir David Trench, G.C.M.G., M.C.,
Government House,
Hong Kong.
CONFIDENTIAL
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.