TIAR JU
Mrs Sandra D Brown Page 2
MILENT THE Love) o049991 A
7.33
Since our discussions and correspondence stray beyond my brief, I should like to make a further excursion to underline a point which did not seem to me sufficiently well understood by those around your table. Any suggestion that the Hong Kong taxpayers' money should be used to discharge a responsibility which rests fairly and squarely with the British Government would be likely to provoke a serious adverse reaction from the public in Hong Kong, as well as from the Chinese Government. Again, I am talking in real life terms: the criticism could not be defused or averted by reference to the constitutional niceties. We in Hong Kong have enough trouble dealing with the Chinese Government's unfounded suspicions that the British Government wishes to siphon Hong Kong's surpluses into the Treasury. The use of Hong Kong public funds to cover HMG's perceived liability to HMOCS officers would be triumphantly produced by Chinese officials as "proof" of their allegations. Apart from the trouble this would cause for those (including myself) who will stay in Hong Kong, it would also make it more difficult for HMG to achieve its objective of a quiet and trouble-free withdrawal from Hong Kong by 1997.
The only possible conclusion is therefore that my study has no relevance to the questions facing HMG over HMOCS officers in Hong Kong.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Margonis.
RP Margolis
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