Mr. Laird (Hong Kong Dept.)
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY No. 51
- 2 PL 1972
HKK 5/12
30
1. Mr. Royle lunched yesterday with Michael Herries. The discussion once again got round to the question of HMG making token gestures to Hong Kong in order to show the Hong Kong/Chinese that Britain really was interested in the colony and its future.
2. Mr. Herries gave Mr. Royle the attached paper prepared by the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong concerned with the provision of books and a new library for the Hong Kong Polytechnic. The suggestion is that HMG should contribute something like £200,000 over years for books if: Hong Kong put up the money for the building.
3. Mr. Royle is having an informal meeting tomorrow with Mr. Higgins, Minister of State for the Treasury, who deals with expenditure. The meeting is primarily concerned with explaining to Mr. Higgins our policies in South-East Asia in order to give him some idea of the background to our aid requests. The discussion may well get round to Hong Kong and Mr. Royle wants to mention the possi- bility of future "gestures", Entirely without commitment and without discussing it with ODA, Mr. Royle would be grateful for your preliminary views on the desirability of HMG contributing to the Library project, so that it could be mentioned to Mr. Higgins as an example of what we have in mind. It seems to Mr. Royle a feasible project but there may be others to which you would accord higher priority. Mr. Royle is seeing Mr. Higgins at 10.30 tomorrow
morning.
Мая быто
M. F. Forrester 26 January, 1972
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