CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
12)
Sir Murray MacLehose KCMG MBE
HONG KONG
Telephone 01-
Your reference
Our reference
HKK 1/6
Date
16 April 1974
LABT
REF.
NEX
REF.
36
Dear Thuray,
APPOINTMENTS OF UNOFFICIALS TO LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE COUNCILS
1.
It might be helpful if we could have your preliminary views on how you see the new appointments of Unofficials to LegCo and ExCo in June this year.
In
2. A good number of the current appointments on both Councils expire on 30 June. In your telegram no. 664 of 18 June 1973 you indicated that you might take the opportunity to retire one or two of the long-standing members and to bring in some new blood. particular, you thought that a place would need to be found on ExCo for Mr Sayer; and that you would have to decide whether the time had not come to retire both Sir Albert Rodrigues and Sir Douglas Clague. We have also heard rumours here that Sir Sidney Gordon was contemplating retiring to the UK. Does this mean that he too will be retiring this year?
3.
My reason for asking for advance comments is to prepare for possible ministerial interest. I have no clear reason for expecting this. But I think it not at all unlikely that there will be further parliamentary comment on the "unrepresentative" nature of Hong Kong's political institutions, and this might well spill over into comments about the background of your Unofficial advisers. Ministers of the last government were also giving this some thought before the elections, though less in the context of representative government than in the climate of early December when ExCo's acceptance of the relevance of the British connection was much in Ministers' minds.
4. It also occurs to me that if you have got any further with your thinking on the possibility of direct elections, this might be the moment to introduce the subject. Thinking within the Office on the possible effect of elections on relations with China is still, however, very cautious.
Jours ever, Andrew
A C Stuart
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Dept.
CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL