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[1 APRIL 1976]
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Hong Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, may I apologise for the fact that I was out of the Chamber for a moment when she began her speech?
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I was merely saying that on many occasions we have taken part in debates like this and often I have agreed with the noble Lord. Today, I am afraid I cannot do so.
7.42 p.m.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, I feel that we all owe a debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Brockway for raising once again for discussion in this House the situation in Hong Kong. Having said that, I should like to part company with him in many of the comments he made. In my view, he described in perhaps too minute detail only one side of the coin. May he perhaps take it from me as an old friend of many years' standing that there is another side to Hong Kong. He has only to read the speech in Hansard of my noble friend Lord Hale to see that he took a rather more moderate, perhaps less rigid doctri- naire view of the situation when he said that the present British Administration in Hong Kong is the best Administration Those that Hong Kong has yet had.
with were the words of Lord Hale. I
go the noble Lord in that. If my noble friend' Lord Brockway says that that is not saying very much, then again I would part company with him and say that it is saying a very great deal.
Of course, he is right about corruption. We know that corruption exists in Hong Kong to an appalling extent; but I would say most emphatically that while corrup tion is endemic in every country in South- East Asia, it is less marked in Hong Kong than in any other. I feel a little hesitant in accepting the views of people who pass judgment from a distance of 14,000 miles, people who are ready to absorb all the complaints of visitors to this country from Hong Kong, without going out and investigating for themselves not only the conditions in Hong Kong, but the conditions in the Philippines, the conditions in Malaysia, in Indonesia, in South Korea and in South Vietnam as
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of the native population there. He spoke to us of the marvellous work that Coun- cillor Elsie Elliott has been doing in Hong Kong. 1 go with him in every word he said. She is a noble character. She has been doing magnificent work and almost single-handed. It is almost parallel to the work that my noble friend Lord Brockway has been doing con- sistently in this country through the whole of his life. If he would forgive me, I would describe my noble friend as the Councillor Elsie Elliott of our own public life in this country-and I say that as a genuine tribute to the work that he has done because he is a friend of old stand; ing. We know each other reasonably well although there are many points' on which we may agree to differ.
There are many other points in his remarks that I should like to take up. Perhaps some of the answers were given Lord by my noble friend Lord Hale. Hale was quite right when he described the intense competition that our textile industries in Lancashire have had to en- dure from cheap labour in Hong Kong. I sat with him for some years as a fellow Lancashire MP in the House of Commons. I would ask how it is that, repeatedly, under successive Labour Goy- ernments, the situation has been tolerated. That is the other side of the coin and Even today there is a reason for it. the imports keep coming in from South- East Asia, from Hong Kong, from Taiwan and other countries, imports which our Labour Government persists in All I want allowing into this country, to say, without trying to justify it, is that there is another side to this case,
My noble friend spoke about child labour in Hong Kong. I believe that the labour regulations of our British Ad- ministration have been more liberal and more effective than any labour regulations in any of the countries of South-East Asia; and although they are faced with an uphill task, I think that they are doing magnificent work in this direction.
There are many other points that I should like to follow up in the remarks of both my colleagues on this side of the House: from the speech of my noble friend Lord Brockway to the rather ñilder, more objective and more balanced approach of my noble friend Lord Hale. Perhaps I may be forgiven on these Benches for going slightly more to the
we used to know it. They would h”,
thankful to come back to Hong Kong and see what success the British Adminis- tration has been able to achieve on behalf
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