TNAG-0937-FCO40-1156-Visits-of-Sir-Murray-MacLehose--Governor-of-Hong-Kong--to-th-1980 — Page 185

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ambushes and so on was in his view best carried out by military forces supported by the police. The Governor explained that signi- ficant efforts had already been made to expand the Hong Kong Police including the Marine Police. He was anxious not to push the police too far too fast and in his view there were not sufficient experienced policemen to cope with the major expansion which would be required to shift the balance with the military significantly. In any case this would be a factor relevant to any argument over the raising of the infantry force level from five to six battalions, and not what was now under consideration which was to raise it from four to five battalions.

3. The Secretary of State said that he was aware of the military advice which had been given by the CBF Hong Kong and the Chiefs of Staff on the military justification for five infantry battalions. He had not challenged this advice, and would view a request for such an increase with sympathy. Nevertheless he had to recognise that this was not the only area where the military advice was that we should be doing more, and he had the ever present problems of finance and manpower to which he had already referred. There was not head-room in our budget for an additional battalion and his colleagues would expect that this should only be provided if the additional financial contribution from Defence Votes was minimal. At the same time he had been made aware of problems over the oper- ation of the existing Defence Costs Agreement (DCA) which appeared to be operating to the disadvantage of the MOD. It had been suggested to him that in practice HMG were paying 54% not 25% as in the DCA. It was not working out as we had expected and this had to be put right. The Governor commented that it was important to keep separate the financial arrangements for the short-term emergency reinforcements which had already been agreed and those for the expanded permanent Garrison. He accepted that if the permanent force levels in the DCA were to be raised then it was open to us to ask for the financial arrangements in the DCA to be amended. But he thought it important that the negotiations should be for an amendment of the existing DCA and not a renegotiation of the whole agreement. The Secretary of State agreed. The Governor said he had not had the impression that we were losing out through the oper- ation of the DCA, and this was certainly not the view taken by his Executive Council. For example, although much play had been made at the time for political reasons in Hong Kong of the value of land given up from military use, this face value had not been turned into cash since the land had not been sold by the Government. However, if the intentions of the two governments on cost sharing were being frustrated something should be done about it. He thought that officials should clear up exactly what it was that was alleged to have gone wrong.

4. In discussion of the problems of accommodating an additional battalion the Governor accepted that a modern barracks would have to be provided. He indicated that temporary barracks for the addi- tional unit might have to be considered in advance of the completion of a new building.

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