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4. As to the future, the Governor said he was not clear how the FCO intended to "monitor" the programmes laid down in the Planning Paper. He suggested that the two monthly letters from Branch
Secretaries/Heads of Department to the Assitant in the Department, a
quant practice instituted during Mr Stuart's time as Head of what was aware of HKIOD, might serve as a vehicle for monitoring progress. (I confess that before going to Hong Kong I had not been in the habit of digesting these reports but will endeavour to do so in future with a view to assessing whether they might meet the monitoring requirement.)
Legislative Council
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5. The Governor emphasised the difficulties of finding suitable new members of the Council. It was a time-consuming exercise and
fraught with unexpected hazards. In several instances he said that he and his advisers had, after a great deal of effort, identified possible candidates, considered all the various pros and cons and reached provisional conclusions that such and such a person would be suitable only to come across some unexpected snag. A case in point was an otherwise entirely suitable candidate who had a distant association with the KMT, which, on Mr Donald's advice, might have been safely overlooked. At a very late stage it had been spotted that the person in question had been denounced in the Chinese press as a lackey of the Soviet Union.
6. In view of the interest which has been shown, eg by Mr Mitchell MP and Mr James Johnson MP, in the possible appointment of elected Urban Councillors to the Legislative Council, I asked the Governor
whether this was a starter. He said that while Urban Councillors
were a possible field for recruitment Mr Hilton Cheong-Leen is currently a member of the Legislative Council and an elected member of the Urban Council it would be wrong to single out the Urban Council per se as a potential source of new members. Appointments had to be made on the basis of individual merit and while the aim was, of course, to widen the social basis of the Legislative Council, no particular organised group in Hong Kong could be regarded as having a particular claim.
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