TNAG-0423-FCO40-469-Construction-of-an-underground-railway-system-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 153

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Another possibility he mentioned – but said that it had not really been seriously considered, merely floated around was that the E and M might perhaps be given to one group and the civil contracting divided between several.

11.

We ran over much of the old ground of the arguments for and against the multi-contract approach and the difficulties of making a meaningful comparison between the price of that and the price of a package deal but there was nothing new in any of this.

12. Mr Jones confirmed that it still beemed to be Mr Haddon-Cave's intention to go on leave on 1 May and he was assuming that he, personally, would then be in the chair for the next round of hegotiations. This is dearly a prospect that he does not relish and he now thought that before he could take it on he would heed to have a much clearer idea - by

irect briefing (not just picking up bits and pieces") from Mr Haddon-Cave of his thinking and intentions. He hinted that it might be that any substantive decisions would be delayed until Mr Haddon-Cave returned and both Mr Mason and I formed the impression that Mr Jones wald prefer it that way. This, incidentally coincides with an impression formed by

lessrs Lever and Weedon from various

whiffs of information they picked up over the week end.

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Mr Fell ECG D

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Mr Stuart HKI OD