MAR 18 '88 01:41 GIS HK
N
P.2
Indeed, it seems to me that it is Mr Lee who is being selective and who is again focusing on AGB McNair and not ourselves. Mr Lee has taken the arguements one stage further in his selectivity by suggesting today that we should pay attention to the judgement of a Mr Norman Webb as to what the people of Hong Kong would like to see in the development of representative government here.
May, I make a general point by way of emphasis.
From the time
that we first launched the Green Paper last year, we have made it clear on a large number of occasions that the views of the people of Hong Kong would be the most important factor to be taken into account when Government considered the way forward for political developaeats here. Miss Dunn Baid yesterday, that if the Survey Office Report had reflected the degree of support for direct election in 1988 as it did for the principle of introducing direct elections, then the Ixecutive Council would have advised the Governor that direct elections should indeed be introduced in 1988. The fact is, and this is endorsed by Meabere' speeches today, that the Survey Office Report clearly showed a sharp division of opinion on the question of timing and nothing that Mr Lee has said this afternoon has altered-that reality. It waa on that barig therefore that the Executive Council recommended, to the Governor that direct elections should be introduced in 1991. The decisions which
stemmed from that advice are in the White Paper.
Those who have continued to campaign strongly for the introduction of direct elections since the publication of the Survey Office Report have tried to justify their actions either by trying to cast doubt on the integrity of the Survey Office or by suggesting that whatever the Survey Report had contained, the Administration would not have introduced direct elections in 1988 because, to do so would have displeased China, There is not one shred of evidence to support these arguemants, I refute them, and they are, I suggest, unworthy of those who continue to put them
forward.
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