!
MINĒTES
་་་་
NO! EXTEL
(77)
NCE TAKEN P POPI
'MITEE (DEU NGEZ
VARS SUB-COV MITTI I
TUESDAY
DECEMBER 1975
(In the Erience asterisks macam that per all of a c go or gi answer she ac
consecutive questions and the answers thereto, hive not been repo-ed in the Appendices to the Evid de asterisks indicate that art or all of a parag upli nos mes been reported)
Members predo
Colonel Sir Harwood Harrison
Mr Bernard Conlan •
Mr Geoffrey Finsberg
*
*Mr Anthot
Kershaw
V: John R per
V Neville Sandelson *
Examination « Witnesses
R! Hom WILLIAM RODGERS, MP. Minister of State for Defere examined, and Mr R 1 ANDREW, Assistant Union sect any of State Gea Star, Ministry
Defence, called in and examine..
Th
(Note: marks membership of the so-called 'Anglo-Hong Kong Parliamentary Group'at the time of the sitting of this Committee. Information contained in list of members by Albert Costain M.P. the then Hon. Treasurer in 1976. Four out of six. Copies of membership lists are available from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, London, free of charge upon request.)
Let us be quite clear what the Foreign Office Censor has done to the document. When they write " part or all of a question or answer thereto, or several consecutive questions and answers thereto have not been reported" this means that, when, as we shall in a minute, look at texts
"***" intermingled that bear the innocuous-looking asterisks
with other material, we might well be looking at a cut from the original text of a page or more. It might be a phrase, or a figure, but we cannot tell. It also could be reams of stuff of the utmost interest, not least to the people of Hong Kong. Pages, even. What is unacceptable is the degree of
s involved. secrecy involved here and the servile acquiescence by the M.P
We may note the preponderance of four out of six IP's (including the Chairman) belonging to the Anglo-H Parliamentary Group: a body that
is notorious for its unswerving loyalty to big-business interests in the Colony. This is no doubt a coincidence, for these are all honourable men and any suggestion that their business, family, touristic or junketing ties to Hong Kong would prompt them to any negligence in discharging their Parliamentary duty
on this Committee is wholly unfounded. Indeed, it is ludicrous.
And, so now we can read extracts from the text. They are extracts in a double sense, firstly, I have extracted them from a larger document, which, although interesting, contains much material (such as details of married quarters for fariz married Ghurka mercenaries) that is not vital to the argument. It is an extract in a deeper sense, namely that certain portions have been cut out so
that no-one, least of all the people of Hong Kong whom it affects more than most shall know what is going on, except, let me see, (a) the British Cabinet &
certain sections of the
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.