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4.
On present plans I would hope to have the draft legislation available for consideration in London at about the end of May, i e about seven days in advance of its examination in detail by Executive Council.
5. These are simply contingency plans, but I thought you should know the possible timetable. The advantages of the proposal are: -
6.
a)
b)
c)
that it would meet a long-standing Chinese complaint that they cannot stop the traffic so long as would-be IIs know that they only have to evade capture to become registered residents with all the benefits this confers. Under the new scheme they would never be safe, and could not enjoy the benefits as they could not obtain legal employment. This would be a potent propaganda weapon for the Chinese to use in the communes.
it is very discouraging for our own security forces to feel that this strong inducement to outwit them is held out to IIs.
the population are at last beginning to be worried about the affect on them of immigration, and feel the Government's traditional policy should be reviewed.
However there are very strong disadvantages: -
a)
b)
c)
once we start we cannot stop without inviting a further flood. This is dangerous because:
we really do not know what the social affect of a sizeable number of people living outside the law and without legal employment will be. There are obvious implications for both crime and blackmail.
furthermore while we think the public would support the new policy to start with, their goodwill would probably be eroded over time as they became irked by being asked to produce I D cards on demand, and the press publicised stories of otherwise innocent people who had lost or forgotten their cards being inconvenienced.
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