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the Colonial Office's approach and the FCO's current approach towards Hong Kong was that it had been fully recognised in the past that a Governor of a dependent territory was primarily concerned with the interests of the population of the territory and not with carrying out HMG's wishes. The ultimate sanction available to the Secretary of State for the Colonies was to sack a Governor but for the most part dependent territories in the days of the Colonial Office had been run on the basis that the man on the spot should be left with the last word. As a former member of the Colonial Office, I must say that my own recollection of the basic philosophy on which the Colonial Office operated coincides with what the Governor said to me.
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3. Having made this point, the Governor said that he was not disposed to continue to make an issue of the Planning Paper. He did not see it as the "treaty" between HMG and the Hong Kong Government a point which was queried with me by Mr Haddon-Cave and others and would not therefore go to the stake over what was "an FCO paper". However, he said that there were still two points in the Planning Paper which he did not think he should let pass without comment for fear that they would give rise to difficulty later on. The se points were the suggestion in paragraph 30 that there should be dearer differentiation than at present between the functions of the Executive and Legislative Councils a suggestion which the Governor described as "pointless" and inimical of speedy decision-making and that in paragraph 36 that IMG should promote a wider understanding in Hong Kong of our overall policy for the Colony and develop a greater awareness among officials of their role in that policy. Governor seemed to regard this last suggestion as an infringement of the Hong Kong Goverment's responsibilities. It was up to the Hong Kong Government to explain policies locally and any suspicion that policies were being made in London wald give rise to very considerable difficulties. Apart from these points and what he described as some "snide remarks", the Governor said that he would not take further issue on the Planning Paper. I have since seen from his letter of 2 July to Mr Cortazzi that the Governor has, in fact, raised a number of other points.
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