TNAG-0801-FCO40-1005-Immigration-from-China-to-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 176

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I attach a copy of the letter sent to Roper by Lord Goronwy - Roberts on which they are awaiting further communication.

I also attach a gestetnered statement which the Society has issued on the question of forced prostitution. The bulk of this purports to be an extract from a police publication "Triad Societies in Hong Kong 1974". I said that this document was, as far as my recollection went, probably prepared by Temple who was now in prison for corruption. If this was so, said Montgomery, the report

I said that probably puts a rosy light on the situation. Hong Kong Society was not so closed that forced prostitution could be carried on in a large scale without somebody getting to hear of it. Montgomery

said he believed that there was

no attempt to hide the practice of forced prostitution because the police were so corrupt. I said that we did not accept that the vast majority of police were corrupt now. In this respect we disagreed with Derek Davies' article in The Times. Roper was glad to hear this. He said that the Governor's meeting with MPs had reassured a great many of them for they had been very concerned at developments of last November. Derek Davies' article coming as it did from a respected journalist had revived uneasiness. I went on to say that some 7,500 people had been recruited to the police since the establishment of ICAC and while one could never be certain, nothing had come to light to suggest that these people had been absorbed into corruption rackets. Jack Cater's view was that they were clean. Of the rest, probably by now half had never been involved in corruption and of the remaining group, most had been involved probably marginally. There still remained a number of hard-core corrupt policemen but no major syndicate was operating now or had been since last summer. I said that the picture of police corruption had been transformed since 1974. Since their report was dated 1974 I suggested they might like to have an updated version of it. Clearly, forced prostitution of the sort described did go on. Indeed, there were reports in the press of court cases about such activities. extent of it was difficult to judge but I did not believe that by now one could accept that there was a large-scale racket connived at or organised by the police.

The

The 1974 report has been quite widely circulated by the Society and I think it would be valuable for it to be replaced by an up-to-date assessment of the situation. In particular I think the comment at the end of the paper is not a reasonable one for 1978. If you could let me have an up-to-date assessment I should be glad to give it to these two men.

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