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Mr A W Gaminara
Hong Kong Department
HONG KONG: COST OF EXTRA SERVICES PROVIDED BY H.M.FORCES DURING THE 1967 DISTURBANCES
11 I am sorry to have delayed these papers due to pressure of other, more urgent, work.
2 While I fully understand your desire to reach an early settlement of this long-standing dispute I wonder whether it might not be better tactics to confine the letter to Mr Haddon-Cave to the request for further ammunition to support an approach to the Ministry of Defence and Treasury, leaving the proposed compromise solutions for use at a later date if they should then seem to be the only way of breaking the deadlock. I have pencilled in some amendments to the draft to give effect to this should you so decide.
13 In any event, we ought not, I think, to propose
compromises unless we know that they are likely to be acceptable to the MOD and Treasury. As you will see from the attached correspondence about a similar problem which has arisen with Bermuda, the MOD in particular seem likely to prove pretty inflexible and there is a distinct probability that they would maintain that any shortfall in the Hong Kong contribution would have to be made up from FCO votes. Mr White's minute of 8 January and Miss Plater's of 21 October have already indicated the difficulties this could cause for us.
14 It is not, however, completely clear to me to what extent the FCO can be held liable for the Hong Kong Government's failure to pay. Whereas, in Bermuda, a former FCO minister was instrumental in persuading the Bermuda Government to ask for the troops in respect of which the disputed charge was raised, the FCO do not seem to have been consulted or even, except in regard to the snake fence, informed of the actions in Hong Kong which led to the disputed charges. If a further approach to Hong Kong produces a dusty answer, could we not just tell the MOD that we cannot now do more and that they must themselves pursue the matter further with Hong Kong if they think fit?
29 November 1971
S Stephenson
Finance Department
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