2797
Sir L Monson
CONFIDENTIAL
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY No. 51
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As you know, I spent a few days in Hong Kong
after the Singapore Conference in January. I was the guest of the Governor throughout and spent two days with him and Lady Trench in their Lodge at Fanling.
2.
I am not recording the discussions which I had with Sir John Cowperthwaite and his colleagues since virtually the whole time was taken up in discussing questions which were subsequently settled in London and in correspondence between the FCO and the Governor, on questions related to the Generalised Preferences Scheme. Nor need I record the impressions made on me by visits to Hong Kong factories and housing schemes.
3.
What I think I should record is the fears expressed to me by the Governor that we were gradually eroding his capacity to retain the confidence of the people of Hong Kong. He was referring in particular to the pressures imposed on him for the release of Chinese Communist prisoners, and
the insistence of the British Government for wider reasons on the acceptance by Hong Kong of economic measures regarded by the Hong Kong authorities as detrimental, coupled with our continued refusal either to assist in projects like the extension of the Airport or to allow Hong Kong the freedom to use its bargaining power in its own interests (again, for example, over the use of the Airport).
4.
Sir D Trench said that an important element in the Hong Kong situation was the confidence felt by the mass of the people there that the Hong Kong Government were willing and able to protect the interests of the inhabitants of the Colony. If that confidence were too badly eroded,
it would become impossible to govern the Colony without a great deal more use of police action and other kinds of force, which
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