What The STAR thinks
M
Tricky Teny?
STA
says
10.
حمد
03
R Haddon the letter he got from Britain in Bahrain is not a fait accompli or an imposition. The STAR hopes he doesn't have to eat those words. The people of Hongkong, until they clearly learn otherwise, have every reason to fear Britain has given us the "rough brush-off on our demands for a better deal for our enormous $9,000 million stake in sterling reserves. Worse than that the British Chancellor of the Exchequer damn well employed a trick to brush-off our demands.
Instead of discussing our demands with Mr Haddon-Cave while he was in London, Mr Anthony Barber chose to tell Mr Haddon-Cave of his unilateral decision to extend for six months the sterling reserves guarantee agreement while Mr Haddon-Cave was in Bahrain for an hour's stop. over on his way home.
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If, on the face of it, that is not a fait accompli — and a high- handed, imposition on a colony then we'll eat every copy of today's paper.
Mr Barber's timing certainly ought to earn for him the
title, "Tricky Tony.”
Of course, Hongkong can still argue we want to diversify our
reserves out of sterling into other currencies.
We can point out the better guarantee rate (2.4213) com- pared with the old guarantee (2.40) means nothing because the American dollar has devalued.
And Britain can talk about her pound crisis.
But where are we going to get when, for instance New Zealand has reportedly already accepted Britain's deci- sion, and other sterling holders are just as likely to do so, 100?
None of the other sterling holders has anything like as much
at stake as Hongkong.
And to save their own political necks and their sterling assets they are just as likely as Britain to want to use Hongkong as aprop for the pound.
Why don't we now have a new Hongkong coat-of- arms: Trapped bunnies in Commonwealth dunces' caph?
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