3
manifest hostility to any transport price increases, irrespective of the
terms of the franchise, whilst the Committee was considering the question
of whether the terms of the franchise justified an increase", In other
words, the Committee was considering the problem of what is a fair roturn,
without which the economic machine in Hong Kong will not operate effectively,
whilst the emotions perhaps more than the thoughts of the public were being
onlisted.
Wide Gap
This, the Commission believes, opened a considerable and dangerous
gap between the reasoned conclusions of the majority of the Committee and
the great mass of public opinion.
The Commission says that "It was in some sense, a 'failuro of
communication' that opened the gap and it was through this wide and
dangerous gap that the demonstrators marched on the evening of the 5th and
6th, to receive from passers-by support and encouragement for their banners
and slogans,"
This "gap" is again referred to by the Commissioners in their
Concluding Statement, in which they state:-
"We have endeavoured to discharge our task by tracing, in
the earlier chapters of this Report, the impact of the
Star Ferry fare application on public opinion in Hong
Kong. On this issue a substantial gap was opened
between informed and uninformed opinion, through which
there came, early in April, groups of youthful
demonstrators whose banner-carrying, slogan-shouting
marches into the heart of Kowloon during the hours of
darkness gave rise to a level of excitement and teenage
hysteria which spilled over into violence and looting
/on the