TNAG-1068-FCO40-1318-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-in-the-UK-1981 — Page 135

From: Sir Frederic Bennett, MP

1. ACRL common

passed to the relevent deprete

2. SEAD f.i.

ка 9 MAR 1981

PS

PATIONS SECTION_

(16)

HOUSE OF COMMONS

Confidential

Dean Peter

LONDON SWIA OAA

9/3

5th March 1981

M.llower M. Shitt

WB

w/3

cc HKG D

Thank you for your understanding and by no means unhelpful letter of March 3rd in regard to my plea for what one hopes will be one final gesture in regard to getting rid altogether of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong or at least containing the problem within easily manageable dimensions capable of being dealt with locally by Hong Kong itself.

I do not wish to seem ungenerous or unresponsive when I have to tell you that I do not really accept the argument contained in your final paragraph in which you say that 4 out of 5 countries, with a better contribution than our- selves, cannot really be compared fairly with us because, in your words "we are not a country of traditional inward migration".

In the first place, while this may be true in historic terms, up to the last war we have, to the distress and even rage of many of our fellow citizens, become a country of massive new migration albeit from Commonwealth countries but certainly involving people no less difficult to inter- grate into British Society than the Vietnamese refugees. In fact, on balance, I should have thought that the argument was the other way.

Secondly however, and more important, I am not pleading for a further quota of Vietnamese refugees as such but for those for which we do legally as well as morally have a special responsibility not shared by Australia, Canada, France, USA or West Germany because we have permitted the individuals to land and stay in a Crown colony, a British possession, for which we still accept full responsibility as the Sovereign power.

The Rt. Hon. The Lord Carrington, KCMB, MC,

However/

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