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5
Yes
not cap to Birtan
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15.
I should also mention the benefit that accrues to British airlines from the landing rights obtained throughout the world by being able to use landing rights in Hong Kong as well as those in the UK as a bargaining point.
16.
At one time Hong Kong was viewed with distrust by the Treasury and Bank of England as causing a haemorrhage of the UK reserves as part of the Kuwait Gap, but what truth there may ever have been in that disappeared with the sterling area. Now all the evidence is that Hong Kong's considerable sterling reserves are of value to HMG.
17.
Last year Hong Kong's imports and exports world wide taken together amounted to £2,830 m., the number of visitors to Hong Kong was 1,082,000 and the tonnage passing through the port was 14,300,000. These are substantial figures, so apart from the profit and loss account of the United Kingdom's bilateral trade, one must remember the role Hong Kong discharges as a generator of commercial activity. Its imports play a particular role in financing a significant part of Chinese purchases from abroad whether from the UK or elsewhere; it has developed into one of the great focal points of world trade, banking and communications. From this there must be spin-off for all vigorous trading countries including the UK.
18.
As against this there is the cost of the garrison (said in the 1973 Defence White Paper to be £25 m. net a year). There is also the political inconvenience which Hong Kong causes HMG through the alleged threat which its exports, particularly exports of textiles and footwear, represent to home and other producers. But economists would probably say that in the long run the provision of these competitive products not a result
is of benefit to European economies rather than the of the colonial reverse, provided the trade is regulated in such a way as
Actatorship to avoid serious damage and disruption, as it is.
19.
It might also be said in these days when colonies are an anachronism, and pride in colonial achievement is at a low ebb, that Hong Kong may sometimes present particular problems in Whitehall. This is because it is a dependent territory to which, constitutionally, HMG can give orders. But in practice the commercial size of Hong Kong, the vigour of the population, the strength of its financial position and the comparative sophistication of its administration narrow greatly the area in which these constitutional powers can be asserted in the Colony at least without unacceptable repercussions or conflict with the principle of the paramountcy of the interests of the Colonial people - even though they cannot be denied in Parliament. In spite of the fact that from time to time
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