CONFIDENTIAL
DRAFT BACKGROUND NOTE
22
Dee
162
It should be noted that M"
Rankin's question
question refers
to the
PARLIAMENTARY
political (as opposed to the ademen'station)
Structure of
the Gooonment.
Flag A.
Flag
B.
UESTION BY MR. JOHN RANKIN
FOR REPLY ON 2 JULY, 1968
The question of the political structure of the Hong Kong
Government is a matter which has been raised by Mr. Rankin on
several occasions in the past in one form or another. He has
coupled this with questions on extending the franchise in
urban council elections. The whole matter was thoroughly
as the subject of
aired when Mr. Rankin raised it in an Adjournment Debate in
^
April, 1967. The last occasion on which he referred to the
Issue
subject was in October, 1967, and on that occasion the
Secretary of State replied to him along the lines which it
is suggested should now be followed in answering the present
question.
2. The fact is that there can be no change in the
"political structure" of the Hong Kong Government of the
kind which Mr. Rankin has in mind (i.e. normal constitutional
progress towards self-government) because the Chinese Peoples
Government would react very sharply to such a development.
For this reason, the Hong Kong Government have been exploring
the possibilities of developments in the sphere of local
government in order to enable the people of Hong Kong to
participate to a greater extent in the conduct of the affairs
of the Colony. In 1965, it was decided to extend the
franchise for elections to the urban council to an estimated
240,000 persons, but only approximately 26,000 people
bothered to register as voters. Even now, after a very
recent and major exercise to persuade as many eligible
voters as possible to register, only approximately 35,000
persons have been sufficiently interested to do so. In
CONFIDENTIAL
/1966