TNAG-0382-FCO40-428-Sterling-assets-and-balance-of-payments-of-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 62

cc Mrs Hedley-Miller

Mr St Clair 4

Mr A Stuart (FCO)

254)

W/284

MR MIDDLETON

SUNDAY TIMES ARTICLE ON HONG KONG

Mr Haddon-Cave, Hong Kong Financial Secretary is suggesting

in the attached telegram that it would be useful to send a

letter to the Editor of the Sunday Times on the lines indicated,

in repost to last Sunday's article. We need to send a reply

with our views to Hong Kong before close of play. Perhaps you

and Mrs Hedley-Miller, to whom I am copying the draft, could

think about this: we might then have a word later in the

afternoon. My own feeling, fortified by the raft of PQs that

have emerged following the recent publicity on Hong Kong, is

that a letter on the lines proposed would tend merely to protract

the present phase of public interest in HMG's relations with

Hong Kong, and that probably the best course is to let sleeping

dogs lie and not send the letter.

2.

I will contact you on this letter in the afternoon.

(D. A. WALKER)

18 December 1973