HKK 11/1
CONFIDENTIAL
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London S.W.1
27 August 1971
HE Sir David Trench, GCMG, MC,
The Governor
HONG KONG
LAST
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KEF.
Dear Devid
1.
You will have realised from the messages from The Queen and the Secretary of State that Hong Kong has been much in our thoughts since Typhoon Rose caused so much damage.
2.
We have been wondering from the beginning whether you would welcome some financial token of HMG's sympathy and we have been looking up our records to see what was done on similar occasions in the past. It seems that on at least 3 occasions IMG has contributed to the relief measures - in 1959, 1960 and 1962. On the last occasion the contribution was to your Community Relief Fund. However, on receipt of
your telegram No 572 in which you said that you did not expect to request any form of assistance we decided that we should do nothing until we had your final report.
3.
We now have your final report (your telegram No 598). We have also seen your Daily Information Bulletin of 19 August reporting on the distribution of the £1 million paid by the Government into the Community Relief Trust Fund. We have assumed from that announcement that you have decided not to make a public appeal for contributions to the Relief Fund on this occasion. Since it would be most difficult for us to consider anything more than a token contribution of something up to £10,000 we came to the tentative conclusion that in all the circumstances it would be best if there were to be no contribution from HMG on this occasion. We then saw the report of the remission by the Chinese Red Cross Society of the sum of 3 million yuan "to help the compatriots in Hong Kong overcome the difficulties caused by the typhoon". It would clearly be out of the question for HMG to attempt to match this contribution which has obviously been offered for political reasons; and unless you think that a token contribution from HMG wodld be appreciated and would not be embarrassing having regard to the size of the CPG offer and in the context of the defence contribution negotiations we
would propose to do nothing. If, of course, there is any
CONFIDENTIAL
P.A.
/practical
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