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His Excellency Sir Murray MacLehose, K.C.M.G., M.B.E.
Governor of Hong Kong,
Government House,
Hong Kong.
April 14, 1975
Your Excellency,
We address this open letter to you on the related subjects of the Tai Shang Wai Housing Scheme and Government accountability to the public, because we believe that it is in the public interest that these matters should be brought right out into the open.
In the first chapter of Hong Kong 1974, Report for the Year 1973, the following remarks occur:
"... different kinds of machinery have been evolved to ensure that though the government may not be elected it should be responsive, and that though the public may not elect they should participate."
"... letters to the press ... are passed to the relevant departments
should a reply be indicated."
"A new procedure has been introduced to enable more members of the public to influence the government's policy-making process.
...
In Hong Kong 1975, Report for the Year 1974, the emphasis has changed from more public participation, and more attention paid to public opinion, back to the old paternalism which the previous year's report disowned. To quote from a recent letter from the Colonial Secretariat, "I am satisfied that the decision is the right one having regard to the needs of the people of Hong Kong." This was in reference to the Tai Shang Wai Housing Scheme, which has aroused considerable opposition, and in which the decision to approve the project has apparently been made without any attempt to justify it, or to explain why the relevant officials of your Government have seen fit to disregard all objections from the public.
The people who have written letters to the Press raising questions about this project are responsible people; many of them we know personally, and others by reputation. Are we to conclude from your Government's silence that as a whole it is so contemptuous of public opinion that
If this is so, it is it cannot even be bothered to answer criticism?
a long way from the trend towards public participation in Government foreshadowed by Hong Kong 1974, and even earlier in speeches by Your Excellency.
We also mention in passing the question of the animal trade with China, which was the subject of widespread public objections, yet to which your Government did not deign to make any public comment.
We are told that your Government is working in the best interests of the people of Hong Kong. We do not doubt that your Government thinks