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5. Mrs Elliott said that Mr Chan was not elected. Evidence for her point of view lay in the fact that 81% of the voters supported her in the last UDC elections. Mr MacKenzie and Mr Chan explained that out of 250,000 eligible voters, only 34,000 had registered and of these only 34% had bothered to vote. They doubted Mrs Elliott's claim for a mandate on this question and mentioned other evidence which ran counter to her views. For instance, the Hong Kong Federation of Students had recently passed a resolution stating that a change to an electoral system would be a disservice to Hong Kong and
China.
6. Lord Goronwy-Roberts said that his own experience had led him to be wary of confusing the views of activist minorities with majority opinion. He could not at present see any over- whelming desire in Hong Kong for elected representation. What he had found was some desire to widen the social base of LegCo and even here it would be necessary carefully to consider the proposals in view of the different allegiances in the population. He had been impressed by the work of the Mutual Aid Committees. These were, of course, a new development and they had a long way to go but there seemed some possibility that they would in time throw up natural leaders who could in due course play a role. The task was to promote representation of a wider spectrum of society in LegCo while avoiding the risk of developments which would lead to total non-democracy for the population at large. Mr MacKenzie, agreeing, pointed to the violent reaction of the Communist to the recent election to the UDC of a member with
KMT affiliations.
URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL
7. Mr Chan said that the delegation's study of the work of the GLC had shown ways in which the Hong Kong UDC might expand its responsibilities within the existing constitutional framework.
He
/could