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1.
My own personal belief is that before present Ministers were prepared to face the choice, acknowledged by the last Secretary of State, between abolition and a return to Creech Jones, we might have to face another Tsoi - damaging though that would be and hard though we would advise against it. It looks like a soft option, and they might well feel that, having got away with it once, we could do so again. The only new factor that might arise, as I see it, if a decision had to be taken in advance of a Hong Kong case as a result of a public outcry on a bad capital case in another colony with an elected legislature. I could not predict the outcome of such a case, and you will remember that the Secretary of State declined to do so. But, however it resulted, it might have some effect on ministerial thinking on the handling of Hong Kong cases.
5.
Once again there seems little we can do except to try to prevent the situation from arising. The interest of all is to play this as long as possible. I do not need to say again how much we appreciate your skill in achieving this.
Yours ever,
Adrow
A C Stuart
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Dept.
CONFIDENTIAL AND STRICTLY PERSONAL
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