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guarantee that HMG would concede anything in the matter of over-licensing to anyone. I said that I thought this was very unfair. The Hong Kong delegation had been told very clearly by Mr Ridley, of the DTI, what the situation was; that until they were in possession of more facts they could not decide the extent of the problem; and that until they knew this Ministers could not take decisions. Within this framework, however, Mr Ridley had assured the delegation (very much at the prompting of the FCO) that Hong Kong would be treated as sympathetically as possible, though, of course, he could not quantify this. For the delegation to complain that HG had been unsympathetic in the circumstances was unfair;
(b) modernisation, including recategorisation. On tais
Mr Cater said that the unofficials and advisers considered HMG's concessions to be very "minor stuff". Although these amounted to something like 4.6 million square yards of material Mr Cater said that the advisers' view was "that the final decision was hardly worth while considering". The brief which TEXTAB had drawn up for the delegation said that the minimum concession which was acceptable to Hong Kong was 10 million square yards. I said that Mr Cater might now realise that 10 million was perhaps excessive and far beyond what HMG were likely to concede. The DTI view was that Hong Kong had obtained considerable concessions including the quadrupling of the corduroy quota (admittedly because British manufacturers wanted more corduroy). The advisers could not possibly have had a chance to consider the figures negotiated by Mr Haddon-Cave in detail and it seemed that they had perhaps been over-hasty in reacting as they did.
3. I could not, of course, ask Mr Cater in terms whether he disagreed with Mr Haddon-Cave's handling of the talks, but he did say that as Chairman of TEXTAB and having attended the meetings at which the brief was drawn up he recognised that what Mr Haddon-Cave had achieved was far short of TEXTAB's demands. I judge therefore that he probably feels that he might have done better. There is, of course, no great
love lost between the two men, Mr Haddon-Cave having prior to his appointment as Financial Secretary been junior to Mr Cater.
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