CONFIDENTIAL
ministers, to full independence;
and in this progress,
external relations have been amongst the last powers to be
retained by the Governor as representing the Crown in right
of the United Kingdom. Nor is there any prospect of
dealing with this problem by amending the constitution so
as to establish some machinery of executive power in
addition to the Governor on which the relevant
responsibilities could be conferred.
13.
Constitutional law is not the only source of
responsibility and power. A possible approach might be
to recognise the practice which has grown up of allowing
Hong Kong to conduct its external commercial relations as
a constitutional convention similar to (though more
extensive than) those which facilitated the development
of dominion self rule before 1926. The difficulties here
are that by recognising that practice had advanced to the
status of a constitutional convention in one field, it
might be difficult to distinguish similar practices in others,
and, it might well be argued, would inhibit our ability to
legislate by way of Letters Patent or Royal Instructions.
Further such a course would have the particular effect of
modifying by constitutional convention the relationship of
the Governor with the Crown. The earlier colonial convent-
ions grew up in respect of self-governing colonies.
There must be some chance that in the next 12 years
Ministers will need to use their residual powers and it
would not be sensible now to adopt a doctrine which would
have the effect of diluting them.
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CONFIDENTIAL
/14.