Lord Wilson of Tillyorn GCMG
香港總督府
CONFIDENTIAL
The Rt Hon Douglas Hurd CBE MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1A 2AH
GOVERNMENT HOUSE
HONG KONG
3 July 1992
Hong Kong: Valdictory Views
"A barren island with hardly a house upon it". Lord Palmerston critising Captain Elliott for taking Hong Kong, 1841.
Sir,
When I first arrived in Hong Kong in 1960, as a Foreign Office language student come to study Chinese at the University, the population was just over 3 million. That itself represented a phenomenal growth from the 600,000 or so people who were left here after the Japanese occupation.
The hillsides were covered with squatter huts as the territory still tried to cope with the massive influx of people that followed the Communist victory in China. There was some conspicuous wealth; but the majority of the people were very poor. Educational standards, except for the elite, were low. Per capita GDP was less than US$300. in Hong Kong" was seen as the hallmark of a cheap copy: "Empire Made" was still used as a way of suggesting that the origin might be elsewhere. Many of the trappings of the traditional colonial way of life were evident, from white gloves at Government House to the shorts and long stockings of the largely expatriate District Officers.
2.
"Made
Hong Kong today, as I leave it after five years as Governor, is a very different place. The population, despite substantial outflows over the past few years, is close to 6 million. In European terms this means a territory somewhere between Denmark and Switzerland. Hong Kong is now more