TNAG-0376-FCO40-422-Discussions-with-Sir-Murray-MacLehose--Governor-of-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 55

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and those which Mr "addon-Cave had made on his return

to Hong Kong. Sir M MacLehose said he had seen the

message, but not the Declaration, (which in fact had

not yet gone). He thought Hong Kong's telegram put

their position well. What they needed was much

wider discretion. They would use such discretion as

any prudent sterling holders would. Without it, any

Hong Kong

All major

devaluation of the noLUS dollar.

losses would be seen as the fault of HMG.

prefered to make their own mistakes.

holders of sterling had much lower MSPs than had

Hong Kong. This anomaly should be put right. The

alt-right reasonable, provided there was no rate of 2.4213 seemed alright if the dollar was net

devalued. Mr Royle pointed out that Mr Haddon-Cave

would be seeing the Chancellor at Dar-es-Salaam and

could put Hong Kong's views in the margin of the

Conference.

Meanwhile perhaps Sir Murray would like

to see the Treasury. Sir M MacLehose said he would

indeed like to do so, but he thought he need not

trouble a Treasury Minister this time.

3.

The

Mr Marshall and Mr Holland said that the

Declaration would be telegraphed to Hong Kong today.

It answered some of Mr Haddon-Cave's questions.

Treasury would prefer to play matters slowly, and

would like to see what the general reaction was

before tackling individual problems.

4. There was then some discussion on the position

of the Hong Kong banks. Mr Holland pointed out that

HMG were not a party to the agreement between the

Hong Kong Government and their banks. Sir M MacLehose

/observed

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