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3.
list, and one or two are being tried out already in the Consumer Council. Some have been failures others not. But I would be making a very serious mistake to rush in with appointments of new people to these supreme organs of government before they themselves have proved their worth or obtained wide experience, and public recognition, and even before the system through which they have come to notice has had time to establish itself.
12.
So I foresee a few years before this new source of talent can be tapped for the top appointments. Meanwhile I doubt if any small changes here, designed to meet some but not all of Dr. Chung's points, would be of any advantage. Indeed I think it likely that they would serve only to keep the issue alive.
13.
So in purely Hong Kong terms I am inclined to accept Sir Y.K.'s advice and sit tight and see what happens. However the question is whether this can be reconciled with what parliamentary interest there is in the UK, and above all with Lord Goronwy Roberts' visit when he is bound to be asked about this by the press.
14.
Since drafting the above there has been a further complication in that the Unofficials other than Dr. Chung met at his request to record their position on what he had said. The minute that emerged from this meeting, which is of course confidential, is attached. From my point of view the document (which reflects the views of individual Unofficials as privately expressed to me), at least disposes of the proposition that Dr. Chung's proposal was the unanimous recommendation of Unofficials. It does not however dispose of what we do about the situation created by the general belief that it was.
For the time being the issue has dropped out of the press, and at a press lunch this week for Chinese journalists I was surprised that the issue was never mentioned at all. However it is bound to crop up again, if only because foreign correspondents will raise it, when Lord Goronwy Roberts comes here.
Y- M
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