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gistry No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
.In Confidence
CONFIDENTIAL
DRAFT
LETTER
Duglas Hard.
To:-
10 Downing Street
Prime Minister's Office
Type 1 +
From
Mr Barrington
Telephone No. & Ext.
60)
Department
Assist P S to S of S
Letter despatched {
1.
I am writing in the hope that you may be able to
Private Secretary's De help us over a point which has arisen in the course
of negotiations which are at present in train with the
1 6 APR 107:
See pea
of attached Filigrams.
Hong Kong Government about the Colony's contribution
towards the cost of our garrison there.
2.
The matter of the Hong Kong defence contribution
has always been a sensitive issue in our relations with
the Colony and we are meeting with considerable
opposition from the unofficial members of the
Governor's Executive Council in our current attempts.
to persuade them to make what we regard as a
reasonably enhanced contribution towards the
substantially higher costs of maintaining the Garrison
The unofficial members have
over the next five years
now made
Na H.MG.
gone so far as to make/written representations on the
subject to Her Majesty's Government in which they
set out their arguments in support of their attitude.
3. One paragraph of their representations reads as
follows:
"During his visit to Hong Kong in January 1970
Mr Heath, the present Prime Minister, when
discussing the policy of withdrawing troops from
Singapore, stated that Britain earned some
£300 million from the Far East and could well
afford to maintain defence forces in this area."
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