TNAG-0571-FCO40-704-Planning-paper-on-Hong-Kong-1976 — Page 52

CONFIDENTIAL

Mr O'Keeffe

Original at: 114K 026/548 This Copy for: PICK 013/548 Information c.ly/Acuan on Para(s)

Mr Cortazzi

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HONG KONG: CALL ON THE GOVERNOR

1. I have already reported to Mr O'Keeffe that I had a talk with the Governor lasting about an hour, followed by lunch with him and Sir Denys Roberts, on 30 June. The principal topics of conversation were the Planning Paper and appointments to the Legislative Council. The Governor has since written about the Planning Paper (his letter of 2 July to Mr Cortazzi) and the Legislative Council (his letter of 6 and 7 July to Mr O'Keeffe) and there is no point, therefore, in my doing a full account of what we said on these matters. He did, however, make a few observations which are not to be found in his letters, at least in quite the same language. These points and others on different topics may therefore be worth noting. Planning Paper

2. At the Governor's request, I explained the origins of the Planning Paper along the lines you had done with Sir Denys Roberts when he was here. The Governor seemed to take what I said in his stride but did observe that the conapt of a Planning Paper was, in his view, alien to the business of the administration of a dependent territory. He said that under the Colonial Office system there had, of course, been extensive consultations between the Governor of a dependent territory and London over a wide range of issues and more often than not there had been disagreement about policies, though these had generally turned on constitutional/political issues such as the speed at which decolonisation should take place. The Secretary of State for the Colonies or officials, acting on his behalf, had certainly issued guidelines, eg in formal despatches, on what should be done, but the Colonial Office had never sought to embody a comprehensive programme of action in the various sectors of government activity in a dependent territory in the form of a Planning Paper. The Governor suggested that the difference between

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CONFIDENTIAL