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You may accuse me of contradiction when on the one hand I say
that we must not rock the boat and on the other I advocate
direct elections and political parties. We all know that there
cannot be any economic progress without taking risks.
We are
all merchant venturers here. If we do not venture forward our
companies wither and die. In the same way the body politic has
to venture forward and has to take risks. There is a
considerable difference between the running of a commercial
enterprise in the 1950's and the 1980's. In the same way, there must be a considerable difference in the running of this city state. The system which worked well for us 10 or 15 years ago may do just the opposite if it is not adjusted to changing circumstances. I believe we run a greater risk if we stay with the present system, or a slight derivation from the present
system, than if we boldly venture forth into a strong political
democracy.
However, the prerequisite for founding a political party is leadership, and this brings me back to the speech I made two
years ago. I said then that we must now find a strong personality who can weld together all the various pressure groups, give them coherence and organisation, and above all, give them a strong voice. And my appeal then asking the new leader of Hong Kong to please stand up, has unfortunately so far not been answered. It is high time that this leader does stand up! We need someone now to put steel into our backbone to
enable us to take risks to make sure that the skeleton of the
Agreement reached between the UK and the PRC will be given flesh and blood and muscle so that this city state really can lead China's economic reconstruction into the 21st Century.
And I believe that such a leader cannot be nurtured in the clubby-family atmosphere of our present establishment exemplified by the Board rooms of our large Chinese corporations and banks, or among the appointed and indirectly elected members of UMELCO. Such a leader can only crystallise out in the rough and tumble of politics and he can only be an effective leader if he is supported by all or most sections of the community, and such support can only be shown via political parties and direct elections.
That is why I say that Hong Kong will not prosper under an