CONFIDENTIAL
п
Ловешкия
MR BOTTOMLEY
HONG KONG TEXTILES
1.
ビ
M
We have already exchanged views on one point in the
Governor's "Carpet" letter.
2.
You ought also to know that Mr Royle instructed me to convey to the DTI at my level the concern of FCO ministers over the state of UK-Hong Kong relations as described by the Governor and to ask that the DTI should bear this in mind during this week's negotiations. (Mr Royle was proposing to do the same with
Mr J. Ridley).
3.
With Mr Hale's help I therefore arranged to see Mr Bullock on the afternoon of Friday last week. Mr Laird accompanied me and Mr Philip Ridley was present.
4.
Mr Bullock said he had got our message and we were able to enlighten him and Mr Ridley on the S of S's peculiar constitutional responsibility for Hong Kong a state of affairs they found as mysterious as had Mr Haddon-Cave.
5.
We did not enter into the details of the UK brief.
Mr Bullock (and for that matter, myself) was not familiar for them. Mr Philip Ridley did say that he was inhibited from going far to meet Hong Kong's apparent desiderata because those desiderata, if extended to other suppliers, would result in a cart and horse being driven through the Cabinet's policy of protecting Lancashire. He proposed to explain at the outset to Hong Kong the effect of doing what they asked for, if it were applied across the board. Mr Bullock pointed out to him that this would not cut much ice with a Hong Kong delegation, naturally concerned only with their own interests and I asked him the rationale behind his argument.
His first reply to my question was that the FCO would not let him discriminate between different suppliers. On second
He did not seem 16.
· have greeted y' Royle's hour NX i MV Land's wro
вовая
thoughts he developed a DTI line of argument (reasonable enough) th when a scheme had run for many years, it was difficult to vary its basis as between different suppliers without putting other British interests at risk in the countries to whose exports it was applied.
7.
In the light of this discussion we should take on board the possibility of our having to take a position (and this means, our Ministers having to take a position) in the next few days
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