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Foreign Honours and Private Citizens.
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Post Foreign Honours and Private Citizens. 
HONOURS IN CONFIDENCE.

The FCO Files which Barry obtained from the National Archives contain the following which is part of a memo in FCO File N0. 57/14 dated 8th. March, 1967, and written by P.H. Gore-Booth, Under Secretary at the FCO. :-

“Of course, the solution to the problem would be to abolish Restricted Permission for private persons and in all cases to give them Unrestricted Permission, whatever services have earned an award. (Needless to say, the rules for Crown servants and those assimilated to them would remain unchanged.) Rather than this, which would add to the Queen’s burden of signing Royal Warrants (probably as many as 240 per year). I would much prefer it if we were to renounce all official control over the award of foreign honours to private persons. It seems unrealistic in this day and age to exact obedience to the Tudor edict to which the authorities trace the origin of this control. Allegiance in any form to a foreign power has little significance to-day compared with that which it meant in the days of Queen Elizabeth I. Moreover, when liberalisation in so many fields is the order of the day, it becomes more and more difficult to justify these historic restrictions: when international co-operation in so many spheres has become so much a part of every day activity, these are only seen to be a bar to progress”.

So the present HD Committee has by revising the 1969 Regulations in 2005, reverted to the Tudor age when it is reported that restrictions on private citizens not wearing a foreign award originated. Surely the authorities in our 21st century must look forward instead of backwards and apply the modern, acceptable system of the late 1960’s. It is sheer lunacy and unjust for any present day authority to revert to rules and restrictions which originated in the late 16th or early 17th century. They had a civil war and beheaded a King for interfering with the people’s parliament but surely the present imperialist HD Committee is not suggesting a return to those days. If so, perhaps the fight4thepjm supporters could put forward a few names for consideration.

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mcdangle wrote:

So the present HD Committee has by revising the 1969 Regulations in 2005, reverted to the Tudor age when it is reported that restrictions on private citizens not wearing a foreign award originated. Surely the authorities in our 21st century must look forward instead of backwards and apply the modern, acceptable system of the late 1960’s. It is sheer lunacy and unjust for any present day authority to revert to rules and restrictions which originated in the late 16th or early 17th century. They had a civil war and beheaded a King for interfering with the people’s parliament but surely the present imperialist HD Committee is not suggesting a return to those days. If so, perhaps the fight4thepjm supporters could put forward a few names for consideration.


You are spot on here, Andy. I remember the very first line in the report (1960-something) that was ordered from the civil servants to explain their administration of the Foreign Decorations 'rules' (teh repoort was required because nobody understood then what the civil servants were doing - and nobody understands today according to none other than our Justice Minister). In their report, the suits said it all goes back to Queen Elizabeth the First when she said "My dogs wear my collars"!

What she meant was that in those days Honours were often given not only for past services but also in the expectation of future services and loyalty. So she wanted her 'dogs' to wear only her 'collars', i.e. the neck ribbon from which many Honours hang, and thus she would be assured that they would not have any divided loyalties.

Nowadays that does not apply - and it certainly doesn't apply in the case of a Commemorative award to ordinary men and women.

Today we live in a global world of mutual reliance - and Honours such as the PJM underline the co-operation that is so necessary in this dangerous world. Only a few civil servants cannot acknowledge the role of Honours in today's society because, if they do, they become redundant. Also, they do not have to put their lives on the line when the mess has to be cleaned up.

Their days of manipulating their home-made incongruous rules from their ivory towers are drawing inexorably to an end.


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BarryF, who fought for the Right to Wear the Pingat Jasa Malaysia
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