工人學生政 治 行 動 委員會
WORKER-STUDENT POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEÈ
i
!
founded on insufficient information. We feol, howover, that many thinking people in Hong Kong, as well as in the U.K., and in the 89 countries which signed the U.N. Resolution of December 14th, 1961, will consider that, the "enthusiasts", for all their strong language, are a little nearer the truth than the apologists for colonialism. It would take a whole book to explain in detail the myriad ways in which Hong Kong's colonial status restricts the pintural development of the people of the colony, and subjects thom to ovils and shunon which wẹo mich Jona common, or are entirely
absent in a.self-governing community. But if you will bear with us, We shali onumornto the most ́ salient evils that spring to the mind of someone
familiar with Hong Kong.
;
#
I
n very small
!
}
The basto injustice, of course, de the obvious one: number of foreigners (less than 1% of the population) has total control over'the lives and destinies of the majority. If the colonial government v were to take upon itself the completely altruistic, and unprofitable, tásk of governing the people of Hong Kong entirely for the benefit of those people, there would be little cause for complaint, and colonialism here
might even appear to be beneficial. However, there are no constitutional safeguards, while there are many economic incentives to encourage the
Government to do the opposite,' and to run the colony entirely (for its own benefit, without paying any attention at all to the interests of the people governed – except, that is, when the colonial pooplo'a dissatisfno- „tion threatens the continuance of the colonial system. This nooma
to have
boon what happened after the Chiriatwon fire of 1953; a disaster of that nature was needed to prod the Government into spending money on the housing programme discussed above. The same thing happened after the riotr of 1966 à Working Party was sot up to look into the ponsibility of rof-j
orms, in social welfaro,
}
1
in }}
}
{
When one notices that the accumulated surplus of the Hong Kong Government is HK$500,000,000,000 (about £345 md11don; £1=JIK$14.5), and last year's surplus was up from HK$36.43 million in the first 7 months of 1969 to $157.76 million the first 7 months of 1970 (a figuro whit.oh in itself is higher than the IIK$135 million budgeted for the whole year) when one notices these facts one is encouraged to believe that at loast
a colony is that it makes one reason for HK's continued existence as profit, on the one hand for the local government and the industria)
7
f
1.
શ
M