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Regarded in purely numerical terms I am not sure how far the proposals for four declarations in 1978 should be considered a substantial drop in Hong Kong's performance. The programme for 1976 and 1977, as originally proposed by the FCO, was for three and four declarations respectively. Hong Kong themselves subsequently raised this to four and five. Disregarding the two carried over from 1976, the total for 1977-78 will be nine declarations, and Mr Hurst, with whom I discussed this point briefly before his departure, considers this a reasonably satisfactory level of progress
5. Nevertheless it is disappointing that Hong Kong have given no indication of possible progress on the other Conventions listed in the appendices to Sir Denys Roberts' letter of 4 January 1977. I would have hoped, first, that they could by now give us their conclusions in regard to three of the four Conventions which are shown in Appendix III as "being examined", i.e. Nos. 10, 58, 86 and 97. To take these four in order:
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(a)
(b)
Agreed I
it has been accepted that Convention 10, setting the minimum age for employment in agriculture at 14, cannot be effectively applied until there is compulsory schooling for all children up to that age;
Convention 58: Hong Kong applies this with the modification that the minimum age set by the Employment of Young Persons and Children at Sea Ordinance is 14 instead of 15 as required by the Convention. This too can probably only be applied in full when the compulsory school-leaving age is raised, in this case to 15, but I suggest that Hong Kong should be asked to say whether this is so;
(c) Convention 86 (Contracts of Employment) is applied with the
modification that the Contracts for Overseas Employment Ordinance covers only manual workers. Hong Kong stated in their last Article 22 report on this Convention (in 1974) that in local circumstances the modification would probably have to be maintained for some time to come. The Government might now be asked to say what exactly the difficulties are which inhibit extension of the Ordinance to non-manual workers and what prospects there are for their removal.
Agreed I
(d) Convention 97 (Migration for Employment): In paragraph 3(a) of the enclosure to their letter of 1 March 1976 to HKD the Social Services Branch said that this Convention could not be applied because there were no plans to introduce a free comprehensive employment service. However, there does exist a network of employment exchanges run by the Local Employment Service of the Department of Labour whose facilities are freely available to immigrants, while the activities of private employment agencies are regulated through a licensing system. Our preliminary view, on the basis of information available to us, is that this point does not pose a serious obstacle to application. I suggest that Hong Kong should be asked to look again at this Convention and let us have their assessment.
Agreed I
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