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The language issue
39. It has also been suggested that local officers should be given precedence because they are bilingual. However, overseas officers hold posts where Chinese language ability is not required and where their particular skills are needed. Nevertheless, we agree that if bilingualism is a job requirement, or if other qualifications among candidates for a job opening are equal, preference should be given to a bilingual person. However, unreasonable language discrimination also contravenes the Bill of Rights. If the Government (contrary to the Basic Law and Hong Kong's international status) were ever to adopt a policy that Chinese was to be the sole language used in the Government, it would clearly be untenable for all but a few overseas officers, and some local officers who are not bilingual, to remain in the Civil Service. There has been no suggestion that this will be the policy of the Government. Furthermore, the Government dropped compulsory Cantonese language courses for all overseas recruits in the early 1970's. Those 6 week courses are not even offered any
more.
Attack on the minority for failure to integrate
40. It has also been suggested that overseas officers and their families do not integrate into the local community. We contest that assertion. A high proportion of expatriates in Hong Kong, including civil servant expatriates, are involved very actively in community affairs, including charitable, cultural, business and political matters. It is true that the great difficulty of learning the Chinese language makes it impracticable to integrate as fully as we would like. However, it must be kept firmly in mind that attacks by the majority on minority groups for not integrating are the very sort of discriminatory behaviour that the Bill of Rights attempts to prevent. We should surely not expect that a government policy should be based on distinctions such as race, language, national or social origin and birth.
High proportion of foreigners - 1.2%!
41.
The latest argument that has come to our attention is that the Hong Kong civil service has a high proportion of "foreigners" compared to other countries due to its colonial history and that therefore it is justified to have a policy to remove them. 1.2%? A high proportion? We are confident that in most other countries the portion of immigrants who work in the civil service must be higher than Hong Kong. Australia, Canada and the USA, for example, are countries largely made up of immigrants.