CONFIDENTIAL
3.
7.
My information is that this somewhat one sided presentation of the case was repeated at Sir John Tilney's meeting with the Unofficial. Members of the Executive and Legislative Council (UMELCO) when this subject came up and Sir Sidney Gordon, one of the Juropean unnofficials on EXCO,. said that the decision by EXCO had been inevitable since there was in effect only one bid, ie the Japanese. I am told by Sir Douglas Clague, who was at the UMELCO meeting, that the impression given was that the XCO decision was both inevitable and unanimous; he personally challenged this but he was in no position positively to refute it as he was not present at the XCO meeting because of his personal interest in the contract. It was this discussion at UMELCO which prompted him to try to ensure that some of the other side got to the press, eg in the report of 16 January to the Hong Kong Standard and the Star's Mitorial of 17 January (both enclosed).
3.
As you will see, the press questioned Mir Chataway about this when he passed through very briefly on 15 January. He also called into the Office, quite unexpectedly, after I had left for Singapore and John Towlson took the oppor- tunity to try to give him some of the figures and background in so far as it was known to him. John Tells me that he thought that some of this came as a slight surprise to Mr Chataway compared with the information he had gathered from the brief contacts he had had with the official side here.
9. Inevitabley it all came up again when Sir John Tilney gave his farewell press conference on Friday 18 January, evening, when he was asked to explain what he had meant by his original statement. In the course of making his explan- ation he said (he tells me) that he accepted that the decision had to be made on commercial grounds and that it was a decision for Eong Kong to take.
The press particularly the South China Morning Post chose to interpret this as saying that the decision was "right" under the headlines "Sir John Tilney Backs Hong Kong's Decision on Tube" over a report in which this particular issue was only one relatively small part. Thus at the end of the week we came out of it all much worse than we went in.
www.
10. Needless to say Sir John Tilney was embarrassed by the headlines but there was nothing that he could do about it without making matters worse. Sir Douglas Clague was doubley infuriated, first because it cannot help the share standing of his own company and could help Jardines and secondly because it rubbed salt in the sore caused earlier in the week when, apparently, the Governor had commented to him that Henry Keswick had been "very clever" to spot that the Guarantee point could be overcome which implied that Sir Douglas Clague had not been very clever. I gather that Sir Douglas made his irritation over the press report known with the result that the Governor sent Sir John Tilney to see Sir Douglas in his race box on Saturday to get Sir Douglas's side of the story. I happened to be in the box, having just returned from Singapore, but was only present at part of the conversation during which Joe Lever, on behalf of Sir Douglas Clague, gave Sir John Tilney the broad figures of the Anglo/Italian bid. Sir John gave the impression that he had not fully appreciated this before but he had taken in the point that the Japanese might well be subsidising and had asked the Governor whether it would not be a violation of GATT and whether the Hong Kong Government should be condoning it. He said that the Governor had told him that it would not be a violation of GATT and Sir John Tilney declared an intention of He asked me whether there was pursuing this further when he got back to London. anything further he could do at this stage; I told him that as I saw it there
CONFIDENTIAL
really /
Every effort is made to ensure that the information given herein is accurate, but no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors or omissions in that information and no responsibility is accepted in regard to the standing of any firms, companies or individuals mentioned.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.