TNAG-0322-FCO40-358-Construction-of-underground-railway-system-in-Hong-Kong-1971 — Page 117

CONFIDENTIAL

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HONG KONG UNDERGROUND RAILWAY

1

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There are four points I thought it best not to put into the attached submission:

(a) I have not discussed the project with Mr Royle;

(b)

(c)

The Final Report of the Consultants was given to CRE of the DTI by Mr Shephard, the Commissioner of Transport in Hong Kong. The copy of the paper submitted to the Transport Advisory Committee was given by Mr Shephard to Mr Blackwell who sent it on to CRE. It would be most unfortunate if the Hong Kong Government came to know that Mr Shephard had passed on to us copies of these documents. I have however agreed with CRE that in the letter to other Departments it will be sufficient if we warn them not to reveal to anybody connected with Freeman Fox that we have a copy of their Final Report.

Sir L Monson suggested to me this morning that the letter to the Governor might go from the PUS. As far as I can trace the Hong Kong Government have never written to us about the proposed underground railway. The expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds is clearly a financial matter on which the Secretary of State might reasonably be expected to wish to comment (please see (10) in file FED 489/400/01 attached). If however the PUS is to sign

the letter to the Governor I think it would be best not to take up this point now.

(d) I fear that Mr Blackwell's general attitude to the Hong

Kong Government has coloured his judgement on this issue.

2.

The submission is complete in itself, but I am also attaching the file.

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CONFIDENTIAL

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