TNAG-0489-FCO40-554-Allegations-of-bribery-and-corruption-in-Hong-Kong-police-an-1974 — Page 120

CONFIDENTIAL

FUGITIVE OFFENDERS ACT

1. I agree that there is no likelihood of our being able to

convince the Home Secretary and the Law Officers that the

Fugitive Offenders Act should be amended in the way in which we

would like to see it amended.

2. I also agree that the one thing we must avoid is announcing

any decision shortly before the Prime Minister's visit, when it

occurs, or otherwise allowing it to become public at that time.

3. On balance therefore I agree with Mr Stuart that the better

course would be to get the row over now. This will not mean that

the issue could not be revived at the time of the visit, but the

first heat should have gone out of it.

4. We have also considered whether as an alternative we could

simply take no decision on this issue so that it would be still

open to us to use a temporising formula to the effect that, although

no final decision had been taken, no course of action acceptable

to the United Kingdom Parliament had yet been found.

Since however

the best part of a year would have passed since the issue was

raised I do not think that this would prove to be a tenable line

and it would quickly be interpreted to mean that we had decided

to do nothing but were reluctant to reveal that decision. For

this reason we have rejected this theoretically alternative course.

29 January 1974

CONFIDENTIAL

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