of some of its burden.
RESTRICTED
It would be very helpful if you
There would be consider-
coul agree to this. If, in the event, the quota could not
be filled from Hong Kong alone, we could perhaps take a few
applications from among "boat refugees" in Malaysia or
elsewhere to make up the number.
able political advantage in our offering Hong Kong a quota
like this and also in being able to use part of it in,
Malaysia or Thailand. It would also help us show the
Americans, who have made a number of approaches to us on
this, that we want to help, even in a modest way.
say,
It
I believe the liome Secretary has recently decided
(though he has not yet announced) that in future the UK will
accept refugees picked up by UK-registered vessels when
these refugees are not accepted for resettlement by any
other country. We greatly appreciate this decision.
could not have been an easy one, given that we have no way
of knowing how many refugees will be rescued by our 'ships
in the future and who will need to come here. Past
experience would suggest that we might expect to take about
a hundred refugees in this way over the next twelve months.
But there has not been a rescue operation in the area,
involving a British-registered vessel, for several months
and it could just be that we shall be required to take only
very few. If, in the light of experience, this turns out
to be the case, would you then consider whether we might
accept a small number of refugees from among those in
Malaysia or Thailand, possibly including a few families who
were not "boat refugees", from the camps in those countries?
I realise that, on the face of it, it may seem I am
asking rather too much of you, especially at this particular
time. But this problem of refugees in Indo-China is of such
/proportions
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