TNAG-0381-FCO40-427-Sterling-assets-and-balance-of-payments-of-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 197

STRICTLY PERSONAL

SECRET

His Excellency

Sir Murray MacLehose KCMG MBE

HONG KONG

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London S.W.1

12 October 1973

Dear Mun

1.

Thuray

Пишу

Thank you for your letter of 2 October about the possibility of a whispering campaign against Haddon-Cave. It is useful to have the background which you gave about the Daily Telegraph article.

2.

The stories that came out of the Nairobi meeting were unfortunate, but there has been no attempt to our knowledge or in our hearing to put the blame for them on Philip. The Treasury officials who came back from Dar-es- Salaam and Nairobi were in fact optimistic, perhaps too optimistic, about the chances of agreement. Barratt for one thought that he had virtually got agreement with Philip for a phased return to the present MSP. We were surprised at that, since it could have implied an obligation to buy sterling, and it is evident from your ExCo paper (which we have now received but will keep to ourselves) that Philip did not regard the proposition as agreed, even ad referendum. I can only think there must have been a genuine misunderstanding. I am afraid though that this has had an unfortunate side- effect on the present consideration of the proposal in your telegram No 1117, in that some senior Treasury officials tend to feel that Hong Kong has gone back on what was said at Dar-es-Salaam. In the context of your letter however, at the time of the press reports to which you refer Treasury officials had no reason to criticise Philip because they thought they were on the point of agreement with him.

3.

That is not of course to say that people may not be talking critically somewhere around town, and that naturally worries us as much as it does you. But, as you say, this is a matter of human relations and there are always two sides to that. I would like to see those relations, among all of us concerned with your affairs, better than they are, as part of the business of improving Anglo-Hong Kong relations. And it is because of that I should like to say a few frank things, strictly between ourselves, about Philip's general approach and attitude.

SECRET

14.