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seriousness of the problem and were fully prepared to co-operate in any new measures. Mr Wenban-Smith agreed that Hong Kong's difficulties reinforced our interest in curbing the international traffic in drugs and had, for example, made it even clearer that it was in our national interest to be represented on the S E Asian
ad hoc committee.
3. Mr Stuart then turned to the recommendation by Hong Kong that separate bilateral approaches should be made to Burma, Thailand and Laos by the UK. Mr Michael said that the US had had little success with a bilateral approach to Burma, but that the UN appeared to be making at least some headway on a person to person basis through Sir H Greenfield. It seemed best for the UK not to try to intervene for the time being. This could do more harm than good. Mr Stuart said that the Embassy in Bangkok had reported that an approach by the UK to the Thais might not achieve much in practice, and that the same might apply to the attachment of a Hong Kong representative to the Embassy in Bangkok. The response from Vientiane had been that the Laotian Government might for the time being be too preoccupied to give much attention to the drug traffic. However, Laos was in any case only responsible for a small proportion of the drugs leaving the Golden Triangle.
The
4. Mr Stuart then went on to discuss two further recommendations which had been made by the Hong Kong Government; firstly the proposal to increase the UK contribution to the UN special fund from £50,000 to £100,000. Mr Wenban-Smith said that there had been difficulties over the original decision to contribute
Would £50,000. The Treasury maintained that much of the money, eg for crop substitution, should come from normal aid funds. agreement to £50,000 was eventually given as a token of support both for the UN programme and for the Americans. It was of little practical importance anyway, set against the $4 million provided by the US and doubling our contribution would not make a measurable difference either to the programme or to our standing within it. Mr Train agreed and said he thought it would be premature to increase our contribution unless there were definite
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