the 50.000 envisaged by Parliament. As a Solicitor yourself I hope you feel that these people and their families are the sort we need in the United Kingdom.
I am appalled by the sacrifices many of my colleagues are already making to seek the insurance of an entry to another country, should things go wrong in Hong Kong. Colleagues have already Sent their wives and children to Canada, Australia and the Unitea States in order to get their children educated there in the hope that that will secure them a right of abode. Friends of mine have been living on their own, without their wives and children, for some time already, with the prospect that the position will continue for a number of years. "Widow Street" in Vancouver is the subject of local gossip whose content you can imagine.
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On this visit I have noticed a marked decline in the standard of spoken English since I left Hong Kong in 1988 to work as a Contract Planning Inspector for the Department of the Environment. This is further evidence that those people whom we wish to retain in Hong Kong are leaving. None wish to leave as Hong Kong is their home but they do want the insurance of a passport that gives them a right of abode in another country should things go wrong. I do hope you can see this is particularly important for Civil Servants who, at the age of 35 and over. are really important to the running of Hong Kong up to, and well beyond 1997.
I am sending a copy of this letter to Michael Stern, my local Member of Parliament, but I thought that you, as a member of the Cabinet, should be aware, first hand, of the problems of the British Nationality Selection Scheme and its application to Hong Hong Chinese Civil Servants.
John Walton Masters
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