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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 1st October 1971.
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services and very many other similar community organizations. I should, further, like to express my appreciation to the Heung Yee Kuk and the Rural Committees for the part they have played in providing Government with advice and support.
The achievements that I have referred to this afternoon are the achievements of us all and, while acknowledging that much will always remain to be done, we can take pride in the progress we have made in recent years. Our businessmen and our students have achieved success wherever they go; and the tenacity with which we have tackled so many problems has earned us much admiration. The fact is that Hong Kong has now fully arrived on the international scene, and is now more widely known and better understood than ever before. We are now a city and territory of some very considerable stature in the world's eyes, and are respected as such-paradoxically enough, one sign of this is perhaps the overtones of envy which is sometimes apparent in outside commentaries on us. But, in general, Hong Kong is also remarkable for its continuing capacity to impress and make a friend of nearly everyone who visits here and who learns a little about us. We ourselves, on the other hand, are by no means an un-self-critical community: indeed I sometimes think we show a tendency to denigrate ourselves rather too much; but criticism shows concern, and concern is precisely what makes a com- munity lively and vigorous.
All that we do as a Government we have done, and are now doing, is for one purpose only: to provide a better life for all who live here and to create expanding opportunities and better services for our growing population. The progress that we have been making is there for all to see, and our people, especially the younger generation, are now enjoying a whole range of opportunities that simply did not exist ten years ago. We have now the resources to sustain this progress: we also have the will. I am therefore confident that Hong Kong can, in the years ahead, continue to succeed in the task of providing an ever more satisfying life for our people.
An now, honourable Members, may I wish you every success in your deliberations during this and all future sessions.
Address of thanks to His Excellency the Governor
THE COLONIAL SECRETARY (SIR HUGH NORMAN-WALKER): —Sir, I beg to move that an address be presented to His Excellency the Governor as follows:-
"We, the Hong Kong Legislative Council here assembled, beg leave to offer thanks for the speech which has been addressed by you to the Council."