CO_968_583_DEFENCE_OF_HONG_KONG_1957_1959 — Page 273

Mr. Wallace

Mr. Carstairs

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I have spoken again this morning to Major-General Hamilton on this subject. There seemed to be a possibility that in advance of a decision being taken by Ministers on the extra artillery unit the War Office would start moving advance units from the regiment during January in preparation for the main move in March, when the regiment became time- expired. The proposal regarding the financing of the regiment made by the Governor of Hong Kong, and put by us to the Ministry of Defence at a meeting under Sir Richard Powell's chairmanship about five weeks ago, has not been given any but the most preliminary consideration. At the meeting referred to above, Sir Richard Powell said that he thought the attitude of the Minister of Defence would be "no money, no unit", but that he wasn't prepared to be categorical on this until the Governor's proposals about military lands had been examined in more detail by the War Office. The War Office have not carried this examination further, at least not in inter-Departmental discussions. But they have, I believe, come to the conclusion that the financing of the artillery unit and the question of military lands should be dealt with entirely separately, and as the result of that, of course, have come to the conclusion that so far as the artillery regiment is concerned it is again a question of "no money, no unit". I understand from Major-General Hamilton that their Secretary of State has approved this as a general line of policy, and that a paper is to be circulated to Ministers in the near future. Mr. Way of the Ministry of Defence has assured me that we will have an opportunity of seeing it or a statement of its contents in draft before the paper goes to Defence Committee.

2.

In the circumstances, I have told General Hamilton that we could not agree, since the reasons for the delay cannot be laid at our door, that the War Office should find themselves compelled to agree to withdrawing the advance parties from Hong Kong merely because time had caught up on them. I said that I felt sure our Secretary of State would not agree to this and would wish to refer the matter immediately to him if there was any suggestion that this should take place. He said that no movement out of Hong Kong of advance parties would take place until he himself had given further consideration to this matter, and he promised to speak to me again on the subject on the 31st December. He did not go as far as to say that the movement of advance parties, with all the publicity that must inevitably follow, would not take place until Ministers had given a decision, and because I think that we should insist on this I think it might be wise to submit this point to the Secretary of State so that when I speak to General Hamilton on the 31st I can be quite certain of the line that we should take. I myself am in no doubt at all that we should insist on keeping the unit there until Ministers have discussed the financial implications. I hope that this will be early in the New Year, since I fully appreciate the War Office desire not to "muck about" their men in Hong Kong by a series of postponements.

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(A. Campbell).

24th December, 1957

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