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(c)
enlargement of, or change in, the composition or type of membership of the Legislative Council might lead to the development of factionalism between the Unofficial Members themselves or to friction between them and the Officials and/or the Executive Council. If any of these occurred they would represent serious handicaps in the run-up to negotiations with the Chinese.
To these it may be answered that:
(a)
(b)
(c)
the execution of these plans must necessarily take into account both the political pressures here and the political realities in Hong Kong. If right in principle, the question of timing is one which can be resolved through mutual consultation;
pressure for greater public participation in Government may increase with the new generation which has grown up in very different circumstances than their immigrant parents. It is surely better to provide channels for such participation by those who want it, by a system we believe acceptable to China, than by seeking to bottle it up;
avoidance of these potentially serious hazards will depend on finding suitable personalities for membership of the Council. These must be found from new sources, but care must be taken to avoid appointing members susceptible to communist manipulation at a time when HM Government's negotiations could be prejudiced by the wrong sort of words or actions in Legislative Council.
21.
Paragraph 20(a) above suggests that mutual adjustment will be necessary to take account of political realities here and the situation in Hong Kong. One such example is of current concern. The International Committees of the TUC and the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party have pressed hard for the appointment of someone drawn from the independent (i.e. non-Communist, non-KMT) unions to the Legislative Council in June. This is on
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