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problems;. as indicating an indifference to the special ties and
relationship which should subsist between a Colony and the
responsible power.
3. To this "unwanted" feeling the dismantling of our responsi-
bilities East of Suez and our military withdrawal from Singapore
have contributed, even though we have tried to offset this by
public statements that we intend to maintain the strength and
effectiveness of the garrison in Hong Kong.
Resentment at what is regarded as interference by Britain in
local affairs
4.
At the same time the Colony's remarkable record of economic
expansion and material progress in the last decade, achieved with
the minimum of outside aid, has induced a feeling of confidence
among those who play a prominent part in public affairs that, but
for the complication of China, Hong Kong would be capable of
standing on its own feet and, more than any territory which has
been granted constitutional advance, of sustaining self-governing
status. The unofficial members, supported by public opinion as
expressed in the non-communist press, are therefore inclined to
argue that Britain should not interfere in local affairs.
There
is, as the Governor has reported to Lord Shepherd in a recent letter,
"general sensitivity here to anything which could be construed
as outside direction"
;
5. Mr. Y. K. KAN, an unofficial member of both the Executive
and Legislative Councils, has been reported as stating that the
Colony's internal affairs are "remotely controlled by London"
and in the Legislative Council on 11 February Dr. S. Y. CHEUNG
said :-
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