CR 5/2071/55
RC Samuel Esq PEKING
BRITISH PASSPORTS
Page
CONFIDENTIAL
12 December 1972
COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE "HONG KONG”
36
In paragraph 2 of my letter of 23 November I said that the Director of Immigration was investigating the possibility of amending current blank passports, and existing passports as they came into his keeping, to get over the difficulty of Hong Kong being described in them as "country of residence". We have now decided to soldier on with existing Hong Kong passports in their present format without making any amendment until the new Hong Kong passports are available - we hope in June 1973. It would have been administratively impossible to make all the amendments in existing blank or issued Hong Kong passports necessary to bring them into line with the new format: merely to have deleted "country of" before "residence" would have been too patent a device and would on ly have served to call attention to the problem. If during the next six months an individual so requests, his existing passport or a new one issued to him will as far as possible be amended to bring it into line with the new format: but not otherwise. This amendment would of course include the deletion of "country of" before "residence".
2.
I do not think that this change of plan need affect the line suggested in paragraph 3 of my letter of 23 November.
сс
R BR Hervey Esq
(R J Stratton)
Ga tok 20/12
HK Lord Kelly
сода
122/12
Ave
воо
22/12
28/12
FED, F CO
Head of Passport Office
F CO
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