by Iain Bowen
They proposed trade; they had originally considered a lease of the island of Jeju, but they had reconsidered. They suggested that in five ports and cities they would establish a free trade zone - and they meant a proper free trade zone; we could agree a tariff regime after that for anywhere else. They were also willing to allow British companies to operate in Korea for extractive, manufacturing and agricultural industries - but they did require three things: firstly, a very moderate profit tax; secondly, a commitment to train Koreans in non-manual roles; and thirdly, that part of the extracted minerals would be sold within Korea at reasonable market prices.
Of course, there were pitfalls there; those with a better business head than I would have to carefully look at them, and I will cheerfully admit that I had not considered the not-inconsiderable mineral wealth of the North of Korea - which, of course, had been Kim Il-Sung's rather strange little playground back in our time - which meant that Korean coal became rather a profitable little venture. However, radiograms to and from London confirmed that, with some work, there was a considerable chance that there was a decent treaty here. We arranged for a delegation to visit Korea, and for them to visit us, and we floated the idea of a final treaty by the autumn.
The final few days of the trip was mainly dealing with people who weren't officially there, or trying to resolve any situations that might come up.
The most prominent of these were the Chinese. We had some considerable trade with China, mainly through the companies who had succeeded the East India Company, but also through trans Overseas Chinese in the various Sultanates of Malaysia and in the Thai states. We had at that point no formal or even informal contact with anyone above the rank of Senior Customs Collector, and that situation continued well into the mid-80's.
There had, of course, been some attempts to "go back", although many of our Chinese population were from Singapore or Malaysia and were culturally at a slight remove from the Middle Kingdom. They were more concerned with non-existent Singapore, the perilous position of Penang and the Phuket lease than with China proper, and even amongst our Chinese population there was more concern with Canton, the former treaty ports and the fishing villages of the Fragrant Harbour than what happened in Peking.
Of those that went back, these days all appeared to be returned, politely, to merchant vessels when trading at the Pearl River delta. Most were traumatised but generally unharmed; there were reports of some having had less happy fates during the period immediately after the Dislocation, but we were in no position to confirm or deny that. The Chinese trade was, of course, a money sink. Silver went in and tea came out - it was probably the most enormous of our trade deficits. Overseas Chinese of both cis and trans stock expressed exasperation at the refusal of goods for purchase.
However, I did hold some meetings with small groups of merchants who were reported to hold some influence in the Canton province, and I was made aware that a couple of the merchants who were mainly in the background were rather unmercantile in their nature and quite possibly representing the administration. Whilst we had arranged to listen to their conversations, we were stymied somewhat by the use of Manchu as a language. Manchu was close to extinction and we had no speaker of it in the UK. The use of Manchu did, however, indicate to us that we were not dealing with an ordinary trade delegation. We did try to engage them, but they quite carefully kept away from us.
The only indication of any sort of public policy was when we were informed that the Yongzheng Emperor had declared that no Christian preacher should be allowed to land in China. I decided the best thing to do was to invite a delegation of Canton merchants to come to London at our expense, in the hope that we might get some mandarins along as well. Happily this was not rejected out of hand, and whilst it took a while to arrange the delegates did visit the next summer - which started the slow thaw in relations.
Vietnam was another problem; France had made mutterings in that direction, and whilst we had counselled against them we weren't in any sort of position to enforce a Pax Asiatica. The country was also in a bit of a state; the Lê kings were figureheads, mainly of the Trịnh lords, and the current ruler of what I would call North Vietnam was a particularly spendthrift man who was leading his country into abject bankruptcy - at which point I suspected that the French would swoop. What we did have was a succession of minor Trịnh, Lê and Nguyễn nobles, in disguise, all vastly misrepresenting their position and trying to gain our support for the inevitable collapse.
What was amusing is that they had to deal with Gary and Chú, our two translators. Gary was an enormously tall black man we had gained from the US Air Force who spoke beautiful Vietnamese and scared the pants off them, whilst Chú was a not-totally-reformed former second cultural secretary of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam who had Dragon Lady down to an art form. They essentially cut through the cackle far better than the diplomats, and told us that the only people we had talked to who had any real power to deal with us were the people representing Nguyễn Phúc Trú. I was very grateful for their input, and we started a tentative trade treaty with the Nguyễn representatives.
The final question in the region was that of Japan; from there came an ominous silence. The VOC informed us that there was a decision being made, that there was some considerable argument with this matter, and that they felt that sooner rather than later Japan would make some form of approach. We had considered sending someone to Nagasaki, but the VOC had rejected that, feeling that they would be expelled if it was found out. The option of doing a Commander Perry was, of course, still open to us - but we had no great need of trade with Japan, and so Pandora's Box would remain shut for a while longer.
After a very busy two weeks in Phuket, I had to return to the UK; Belfast would take me back to Bombay and then a combination of the RAF and BA would get me back to London just before the local elections. The trip hadn't yielded anything spectacular, but it had started to form relations in Asia and it was a basis on which to build.
Having finally managed to arrive back, I had to spend some time briefing the PM; I didn’t really have a great deal to show for it, a small order from Thailand for some agricultural machinery in return for rice and a great deal of interest from the sub-continent over dyestuffs. As I explained, the subcontinent and the East remained money sinks for us - we would buy things in and not sell much in return. However, the amount of trade of UK goods in Bombay was growing nicely and I expected to grow more; the problem was what to pitch to them. That was something that needed more investigation and more people on the ground; certainly there were some hopes from India, where there may have been many millions of poor people, but there were also some quite rich people. Both the Thais and the Koreans had struck me as being possibly very good markets within a decade or so, and there were possibilities for Oman if it remained independent from Ottoman or Persian expansion.
I felt that we needed to do a little more with what used to be known as the Trucial States; the area between Bahrain and Oman would be rather better not falling into the hands of the two local big-boys. The PM was a little more unsure about this, and that was perfectly understandable; she too was aware of the reputation of the FO and their love affair with the mysteries of Araby, but I emphasised that I was not contemplating involvement - more trying to see if we could form a buffer between the two. Of course, our resources meant that this really wasn’t a big starter - and later events showed that both powers had different directions in which they were interested. It was to be a while before I headed out East again, by which time considerable changes had occurred.
Chapter 18
One of the duties I have assigned myself as Foreign Secretary was the visitation of the sick, or more correctly those august personages who came for medical treatment. It was truly amazing, after we had conducted some miracle cure or other, how grateful they could be and how much interesting information they could impart. I always managed to arrange things so that several hospital rooms at various hospitals became sovereign territory fo
r births. I think Room 6 at Eddie’s had seven different nationalities in the time I was Foreign Secretary.
June 1983 was no exception to this; I had to move swiftly from a very important meeting about Tuscany - where I was stunned by the fact the Grand Duchess had over 2 million guineas in cash that she wanted to use to improve sanitation and water supplies in the Grand Duchy - to the bedside of the heir to the Count Palatine of Sulzbach. His father was very ill, already past his allotted span before the Dislocation due to the application of some modern medicine, but too old and too stubborn to travel. His son had swiftly, in what would have been, followed him to the grave and had been ordered by his father to come and get himself fixed up. I was always impressed by the stoicism of those who knew it was their time - and less impressed by the ones who declared "well, things are different now", proceeded to take two Anadin and ended up accounting for their sins at around the same time.
Johann Christian, luckily, was quite treatable and the doctors reckoned that he should easily get another thirty to forty years lifespan - barring accidents, epidemics and warfare. He very much welcomed this, although he did not particularly welcome the lecture about the fairly high degree of consanguineous marriages amongst the various scions of the Wittelsbach lineage from his consultant. They did tend to do this, for good reasons, but sometimes it wasn't helpful. However, as even trans-royalty tended to regard NHS consultants as being somewhat superhuman, they tended to get away with such lese-majeste and still collect some minor order or bauble.
Now Sulzbach in Franconia wasn't terribly important in itself, but as well as being the fairly imminent heir to Sulzbach there was an extremely strong chance - in fact, almost a certainty - that Johann Christian would become the Elector Palatine and Duke of Jülich and Berg. The former title was important, but the Duchy of Jülich and Berg had considerable potential because of its lands in the Ruhr. Therefore Johann Christian was a man worth cultivating, especially as he was a bit of a tabula rasa. There was also a chance that he or his son might eventually become Elector of Bavaria, although there were plenty of potential problems in the way there - whilst Maximilian Joseph might well prove to have the usual reason for Wittelsbach childlessness, his younger brother had already been to the UK, been checked out and would be watched very carefully for illness this winter. Unfortunately, whilst the UK's relations with Bavaria had improved, they did not improve enough for them to take much heed of our good advice and the potential Bavarian inheritance by the Palatinate is currently much less of a problem.
Johann Christian turned out to be a pleasant, reasonably educated young man; perhaps not as much as many others, but he had been - until four years ago - the spare, not the heir. He was as tolerant as his father, and said that he admired how the UK had dealt with its many religions and how it provided education to all. He was, however, concerned about his son - which was understandable given the what-would-have-been history. I suggested that a UK education might be in order; Johann was more concerned about finding him a more suitable wife and curbing his spendthrift tendencies. I did, of course, comment that loving the arts and philosophy was not a bad thing for a monarch and that his son had been well-regarded in some ways, but he clearly thought that something needed to be done.
He expressed an interest when he was released in visiting some ordinary British people - not the usual tourist round, nor the tour of county houses, but in seeing ordinary schools, homes, hospitals and workplaces. It was an unusual request - most rulers shied well away from the mundane - but one that was quite easy to fulfil.
At the same time, we were also making sure that there were some visits abroad by members of the Firm. We had made sure that just about every major Royal had visited Ireland by 1983, where they were generally received fairly well, although some areas were more enthusiastic than others and the Queen got a better reception than others. However, it was fairly clear that we were certainly more popular than the Hanoverians, and possibly more popular than we had been before the Dislocation.
However, we had to be a little more careful when sending royals abroad; state visits weren’t done as much then, and were usually attached to an event of some significance. So it was fine to send the Queen to sign the Treaty of Bordeaux, and for her to visit Lisbon afterwards. Otherwise, it was a tricky matter, with the main interest from the Scandinavians and from the Empire. We had to quite careful with this, but usually used Princess Anne or a Kent or a Gloucester.
I accompanied Princess Anne on a short visit to Hanover and Hamburg, both of which were safe territory. She had agreed to open the new High School in Hannover and attend the first Hannover Races; she enjoyed both events and performed superbly. We were picking up some small orders from Hannover apart from the Friendship Money and it was clear that the town was expanding. Hamburg was more of a success; the Hamburgers and Princess Anne seemed to get along very well and she did a very successful walkabout. We didn’t pick up any extra business in Hamburg; Hamburg was already booming very nicely, only in Ireland was there a greater rate of economic growth.
By the summer of 1983, things were generally settled at the Foreign Office and I was looking forward to a couple of weeks in Cascais; whilst quite unmodernised, and likely to remain so as it would be treated grimly by the Earthquake, it was perfectly survivable with an adequate supply of bottled water and a fresh fish diet. Quite a few people in my circles were being more daring with their holidays this year given the forecasts back in the UK. The masses shivered and got damp in Cornish cottages, Welsh caravans, East Coast beach huts or what a waspish friend called Butlitz.
The main struggles were with the main slave-holding powers - France, Spain and the Ottomans. With the visible transatlantic slave trade virtually completely halted, public attention had gone away from France and Spain; despite the best efforts of Wedgie Benn, the marches were down in numbers considerably. Public attention was being directed towards the Ottomans by Dr Brown[66] and the Ottomans just blamed the Crimeans - which wasn't very convincing, but it didn't really have the true attention of the public gaze at this time.
However, generally, things were stable - which was why I was surprised at a visit from the Spanish Ambassador. Relations with Spain had been publicly frosty, but privately fairly decent. There were constant niggles about Gibraltar, but for instance Panama was going very well, and we had assisted with a very reasonably priced contract with Cunard to replace the treasure ships completely with British secured vessels which would allow the remains of the Spanish fleet to concentrate on the Caribbean trade.
Spain had only recently announced that the last of its attempted colonial rebellions had finally been dealt with. My understanding from our woman in Panama that it was more a case of "driven into the jungle" than put down; they were somewhat twitchy about any more. Unlike the other European powers, the Spanish had an intelligence service which knew what it was doing and had spent some time and money adapting to modern times. Whilst others were working on rifles, artillery and even hot-air balloons, Spain had started playing with radios, semaphores and codes which actually strained the minds of GCHQ for a few minutes.
What the ambassador had was a somewhat dodgy dossier relating to activities in and around Cuba. The Pearl of the Antilles was a very sore point; it had nearly been lost to a slave rebellion, and we had certainly turned a blind eye to some interesting humanitarian support and to a small volunteer flotilla that evacuated people from the final rebel-held port. Indeed, around 90% of our tiny number of asylum cases in 1982 had been from Cuba; most had stayed in the Caribbean, but some had come to London - including their highly charismatic leader, Ángel Marti.
Marti, which he had taken as a nom de guerre, was an extremely intelligent young man who knew how to use his considerable physical and mental prowess to leverage a good position for himself. No ASL march was complete without a speech by Marti, no London Leftist occasion could be deemed a success without him and several Lefty ladies had fallen for his charms. However he was not a stupid man, as was sh
own by his decent command of somewhat charmingly broken English after only a year in the country, and since Easter he had also been buttering up the right and the centre as well as the left.
Of course, we had this over and over again with a number of Powers. We were not in the business of restricting free speech; whilst we did not support violent revolution, we fully understood those who wished to be freed from their chains or that nations were being held captive against their will.
However, as I had mentioned, the Spanish had developed somewhat of an intelligence service and the Ambassador had plenty of photographs of various people at a charity dinner organised by Mr Branson, sound recordings of some speeches which did rather go beyond the pale and clear evidence of collections being taken to buy arms for rebels. Now this probably would have been something to pass on to the Home Department, the presence of Pinters and Pakenhams be damned, if it wasn't for a couple of pictures that showed a Royal Personage dancing with young Mr Marti. Luckily at this point we managed to persuade certain newspaper columnists that discretion was the better part of valour, but we also had to make promises to Spain to ensure that modern arms didn’t reach the former Cuban rebels - I think this was a wise move, as no one wanted a repeat of the Bay of Pigs.
The party conference of 1983 was not the best in the history of the party; the unexpected loss of the Farnham by-election to the Liberals and the near-loss of the Portsmouth South by-election due to an unsuitable candidate, plus a string of unpleasantly poor local by-election results in the South, had left the voluntary party a little fractious. Unemployment, whilst continuously decreasing, was doing it more slowly than many imagined it would and inflation was rising slightly as price controls were relaxed on material now felt to be sufficiently in supply. To be honest, I found the latter point spurious - 4% inflation was far, far better than anyone would have predicted for 1983 before the dislocation, and Nigel assured us that the long-term trend would be probably be down to around 1-2%. However, having been very generous in 1982, the increases in various rations in 1983 were paltry - the press accused us of having cooked the books somewhat the previous year in order to make things seem a little more rosy before the election. I must admit that there had been some creativity and the use of some barrier stocks that shouldn’t have been used, but essentially GJ-S[67] was always looking to try and increase the ration by as much as possible. He had perhaps over-egged the pudding and was paying for it because of bad weather this year.