PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
the difficulty of garting the Governor's proposals
through LegCo. If they were voted down, there would be an "unstructured political situation". That would be a recipe
for disaster. It would give Martin Lee and co a chance to bid
for political power by bringing the "democratic mass" out on
to the streets. He had warned the Chinese of this risk and
had said that they should be happy to accept the current
proposals. After all, that would ensure that they inherited a
pretty totalitarian set-up (Mr Rogers was encouraged when we
told him of the results of that evening's vote in LegCo
endorsing a motion which gave general support to the Governor's constitutional proposals);
the Governor's decision to separate the membership of
ExCo and LegCo. This was reminiscent of 17th century England.
It was a further recipe for disaster.
9.
Mr Rogers concluded that it was all rather a mess (he
used a more colourful term). But he had taken a decision not
to "huff and puff" about it. He did not want to play politics on an issue where the interests of 6 million people were at
stake. But he could change his mind on that, and would do so
if he saw any prospect that it would contribute to bringing the present Government down. That for him was the overriding
priority.
10.
You explained to Mr Rogers the Governor's reasons for
deciding to make his proposals public rather than go behind
the backs of the Hong Kong people to discuss them privately
with the Chinese first. You asked whether Mr Rogers had had
the impression from his interlocutors in Hong Kong that they
would have preferred the Governor to have followed the latter
course. He confirmed that they would. Mr Rogers concluded by
emphasising that he personally hoped that the Governor's
proposals would get through LegCo. But he thought that the
rogers.hk.GEN.KR
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL