CONFIDENTIAL
13
that they have never seen themselves in this light, and the Heung Yee Kuk has never been convincingly fitted in with any local authority proposals. Rural Committees and the Heung Yee Kuk are not regarded by N.T. people as local authorities, actual or potential. The real function of Rural Committees and the Heung Yee Kuk is to speak and be heard on any subject. Internal security would never be a local authority matter, yet the Kuk and some Rural Committees were of considerable political service in this field in the 1967 confrontation just as, in other times, they may protest vociferously against law-enforcement action in one field or another. Nowadays executive authorities usually see the need to consult a Rural Committee before taking action in important matters rather than wait to be taken to task after they have acted arbitrarily. The influence wielded by these bodies without statutory existence or powers is quite considerable, and this is due to the political ability of the men involved as well as to the fairly effective degree of representation contrived for the older established New Territories inhabitants.
28. It is not however necessary that local pressure should be brought to bear through a body of unofficials, and District Officers have performed this role when Rural Committees have failed or on behalf of those who have no say in Rural Committees. In the urban areas the City District Officers are intended to perform precisely the same function and to serve as a vehicle or a channel for the representation of local interests.
29. Whether it will ever be desirable to formalise the geographically based advisory machinery is doubtful and certainly at present there is much to be said for an extremely flexible approach. The C.D.C. scheme is in its infancy and even in the New Territories it is only among the long settled and stable villages that the machinery for producing representative views through Rural Committees can be relied
upon.
30.
I think that it is important to develop locally based consultative machinery along present lines irrespective of the change in policy
/proposed