experience, they proposed that nine new functional constituencies should be formed in the same way. They
proposed a byzantine system, open to manipulation, for the Election Committee to return 10 members of the Legislative
Council. They proposed a voting method for the geographical constituencies tilted to ensure that the less popular parties
won seats.
We went as far as we could to bridge the gap. As part of that,
we explored fully the possibility of an interim understanding
which would allow legislation to be introduced on the most
urgent issues. But the Chinese side refused to accept two
elements which in our judgement were essential to fair and open elections. First, the abolition of appointed seats in the
District Boards and Municipal Councils so that they, like the
Legislative Council, would be fully elected by 1994-5. Second,
the single seat-single vote method for the Legislative Council geographical elections: even though they had accepted this method for the District Board and Municipal Council elections. The Legislative Council voted clearly in July 1992 that this
method should apply to the Legislative Council elections, and the leaders of the two main parties confirmed their support for
it in November 1993. It would serve no purpose to table draft legislation that omitted this point, since members of the Council would be likely simply to amend it to reflect their
known views.
We now need to get on with legislation on the urgent issues to
enable the elections to be held on time. The Hong Kong
Government's Bill is limited to those issues. For our part we stand ready to continue discussion of the outstanding issues
with the Chinese side. Meanwhile the Governor will be
consulting members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council on the
content of draft legislation on these remaining issues. It will
be for them to pass legislation in the best interests of Hong
statememt 26.8/BRIEFS/NJH