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5 MAY 1977
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Jun. 57
London & Hongkong Newspapers
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Y.B. LOW-ITO
2.0. Box 8702,
Mongkok, Kowloon,
Hong Kong
April 28th, 1977
COPY FOR HON'BLE DR DAVID OWEN
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при Press reports indicate that a delegation of 7 men from the New Territories headed by the Acting Chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk have arrived in London for weeks' long negotiations on the future of the New Territories, the agricultural "buffer" area between Continental China and the built-up areas of Hong Kong. This follows the protracted efforts during 1976 to abolish the New Territories Administration, that section of the Hongkong Government administering the New Territories, and transfer rule to a Committee of villagers. Although a total news blackout has been enforced in this matter, it is known that a petition was sent from the New Territories to the Peking authorities in late 1976 to enforce this abolition of the New Territories Administration, Now these 7 men, picked "representatives" of the New Territories (though some of them are living outside the New Territories) have flown to London to see The Rt.Hon'ble Dr„David Owen, one of thật new breed of "intellectual" politicos, much touted by the Labour Party Public Relations people. 7 is a magical number Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs, the 7 wonders of the world, the 7 Hills on which Rome was built. On these 7 so-called "representatives" forsooth the future of the New Territories may now depend. I warn the Government that newspaper clampdown or no newspaper clampdown, any tampering with the present structure of the New Territories, 20 years before the end of the occial Lease, may lead to incalculable consequences to Hongkong. Such changes have already begun. In Yuen Long, the hub of the New Territories, there is not a single non- Chinese official left at the huge Government administrative complex there Some Government Departments there have been whittled down to a single man, official-cum clerk-cum office boy.
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Over the years, the Hongkong Government has bent itself backwards to placate the New Territories farmers. No rates or taxes have to be paid in the greatest part of the New Territories. Any villager can emigrate to England with the minimum of formalities. Even factories located in the villages need not pay Corporation Profits Tax, although demand notes may be issued sporadically by the Inland Revenue Department as a matter of form, Even for dog licences, the fee is one-third. These concessions of course, do NOT aply to outsiders in the New Territories. when I applied for renewal of a dog licence on October 12th, 1976. I was warned by the Government Department that I had brought a different dog, that I did not know my own dog, that perhaps I had stolen the dog, and that condign punishment would be meted out to me by the Fanling Magistracy. I warn the Government on the consequences of uttering such cheap and despicable threats against the public, If any outsider muscles in on the New Territories, he does so at his own risk. I, for instance, have been obliged to surround my house in the New Territories with a triple line of barbed wire, spikes, and camouflaged barriers. My watchdog, a small spaniel, was savagely attacked with a heavy iron spade. A Police box installed outside my gate at the request of the Legislative Council Office in August 1976 was instantly hacked to pieces with axes by these New Territories villagers.
The threat to bring in the Peking Government to intervene may be regarded with diplomatic suavity by the "intellectuals" in London. In other times and other climes, the Greeks had a word for this kind of talk - the threat to bring in a foreign Bower to oust the local Administration.