1 CONFIDENTIAL
2.
New Territories Administration.
For similar reasons
there is advantage in maintaining the advisory role of the Kuk in matters affecting the Territories as a whole largely relating to land and compensation for land resumption, and over amenities in areas outside the main towns. The latter will be large units ranging from 800,000 to 100,000 inhabitants. They will have their own industry, schools and City Halls, and progressively a self-contained civic, cultural and recreational life of their own. Their inhabitants are (in Tsuen Wan) or will be primarily concerned with developing and participating in this life, and have little sense of the New Territories as a focus of interest. I therefore believe we should build on the successful experiment in Tsuen Wan, and progressively set up local bodies to play a defined role in the management of each town. While this may not be what the Kuk want I am sure that it is the course we should pursue. Paragraph 21 of the draft reply covers this.
7.
This petition is more lengthy, better prepared and more hostile in tone than other recent petitions by the Heung Yee Kuk. Because it has been prepared more carefully, the reply to it will be taken more seriously. However, there is little of substance in it and virtually no room for concession. One of the main issues, although this may not be immediately apparent, is the resumption of private land for development principally in the New Towns, referred to in the petition as 'expropriation", a term borrowed from the Convention.
8.
I
This assertion has been a recurrent theme of petitions and dialogue with the Kuk for about twenty years (see my Saving Telegram No. 138 of 10 September 1976). am giving thought to the appointment of a Commission to advise whether the provisions of the Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance, as applied to the New Territories land-owners, are fair and reasonable, and have in mind appointing Sir Ronald Holmes to head it since he is a much respected former Commissioner of the New Territories. This will need further thought, and of course I would need to take the advice of Executive Council before appointing a Commission. If we did decide to do this, I would propose to announce it in my Annual Address, in October. I believe that such a step would be welcomed by the Kuk, and generally within the New Territories, and I personally believe that the time is ripe for a radical new look at the whole problem, which concerns compensation for the clearance of people with