1365 +
1.
1366
[1 APRIL 1976]
Kong
elected bodies which work under the Gov- ernment.
Hong
of Reconstruction. It should include in its objectives the extension of democracy. The argument is sometimes used that Peking will not allow democracy to be established in Hong Kong, but experience in the Portuguese similar area of Macau indicates that that is not true; the Chinese have agreed there to adult suffrage and a direct vote to the legisla- ture. When Hong Kong eventually becomes absorbed into China let us be proud of the society which we have helped to create there. China is building a new society. When Hong Kong's mil- lions join it, let them have an experience of democracy which they can contribute to it.
7.8 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, for once I have great pleasure in sharing a nega- tive experience with the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, in that I, too, have not had the pleasure or opportunity of going to Hong Kong. However, I do not share with him the opportunity of having read the very interesting correspondence on which he based such a large part of his Question and, accordingly, I can only use for my contribution to this short debate information which is official or which has been published in the rather better daily or weekly newspapers. The noble Lord will forgive me, therefore, if, owing to the lick of availability of the same sources of information, I do not deal with all the points he mentioned.
The noble Lord, in his own inimitable way, at least managed to avert our gaze from the more troubled domestic economic scene of the United Kingdom to a part of the world where certainly the economy at least is very much more salubrious. I understand that quite a number of his proposals and facts, or at any rate his observations, came from a Fabian report which was commented upon in one of the daily newspapers. It rightly emphasised the enormous amount of social injustice, and those who have been to Hong Kong and to whom I have spoken have confirmed that there are terrible housing conditions in parts of Hong Kong, and this nobody would deny, But for a report to be valuable it must be objective and fair and must realise the conditions under which the people of Hong Kong have been living and have to live, the contribution and work of the governing body of Hong Kong and the
First, if the noble Lord was referring to the trade in narcotics, it is true to say that there is a considerable amount of opium taking and that Hong Kong has become one of the traditional outposts for trading in this drug. But it is also true to say that this has been a tradition for centuries in that part of the world. That has to be taken into account and I would advise the noble Lord of the comments of Chinese and other Asians who come here to this country and see the enormous amount of alcoholism. When they go back, precisely the same com- ments are made about alcoholism' in Western Europe as the noble Lord has been making about opium in Hong Kong. So I feel that this must also be viewed with a certain amount of tolerance, how- ever much we ourselves may deplore the use of opium and drug trafficking, which is an evil which we should wish and hope to see suppressed, I believe that it is fair to put it in its proper perspective.
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, referred to the very large population of Hong Kong. However, he did not mention the fact that the popula- tion has increased from about 600,000 to That 4 million in the last 30 years. is an enormous increase by any standards and a proportional increase in this country would not only not be tolerated but would be quite impossible to adminis ter. This must be taken in relation to the size of the territory on which these people are living. Nor did the noble Lord refer to the almost impossible diffi- ' culty of resolving the franchise problem because the population has not only increased but is an ever-changing popula- tion. That makes it all the more diflicult to administer. I was very interested to see in a recent communiqué from the Community Relations Commission that by far the largest ethnic group in the schools in this country are children of Chinese origin. It is of course true that they are coming into this country from Hong Kong. This merely emphasises the point that considerable numbers are crossing the border the whole time. Again, that must make administration a nightmare for those responsible,
The noble Lord mentioned schooling. I believe that he was probably slightly unfair. From the information that I
!
"