TNAG-0307-FCO40-343-Costs-of-extra-services-provided-by-armed-forces-of-UK-in-Ho-1971 — Page 11

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the fence). (See Carter's letter to Cowperthwaite

of 26 March 1969).

But in your letter to Carter

of 9 April 1969 you said that the fence was a

separate issue (I am not clear what you meant by

that and in his letter of 2 October 1970

that ar

Jeaffreson said - "we consider the fence to be a

matter of external rather than internal security

and thus a proper charge on HM Government."

went on to ask us to approach the Treasury on

your behalf.

<<

Since by that time we were well

and

into the negotiations over the defence contribution

we decided that it would be wiser from everyone's

point of view not to run the risk of complicating

those already difficult negotiations by introducing

this extraneous factor.

4.

We now have to approach the Treasury since

we are being pressed by MOD for reimbursement of

their votes; and my purpose in writing is to let

you know how we in the FCO view the situation and

to agree with you the line we should take in our

disucssions with the Treasury.

5. The Frontier Fence. Our information of the

purposes for which the fence was built comes from

Hong Kong telegram number 1320 of 29 August 1967.

Frankly, we are not at all happy about Hong Kong's

position over this item. Although it was stated

in the telegram that "the object of this obstacle

will be to stop land incursions of all kinds" there

seems to us to be little doubt that the primary

/purpose

(13) on

с Уний 10)4

D HKK 10/9

A

Don Hars 10/17

3

twis

E

10/16.

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