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THE WAY WE ARE
enforced by the Courts of Justice. That gives them confidence in their dealings with one another and with Government."
I think that statement very well encapsulates the important role played by the rule of law in our success story.
Our success has demonstrated that there is plenty of confidence in our society but that confidence is little use if we cannot have confidence in the rules of the game and that they will not be changed overnight. That confidence is the product of the factors that I have been talking about. Of course it is not much help to be sure that the rules will not be changed if they are bad rules. They must be rules that the majority of the population accepts as fair and reasonable, rules that give everyone a fair chance and an incentive to provide for themselves and their families, knowing that if they succeed, they will be allowed to decide for themselves how to dispose of the rewards of that success. People can do this in Hong Kong because we have a system of taxation that, while it takes something from each of us to provide for necessary public services and for the support of the less fortunate, leaves the major portion of all salaries and profits in the hands of those who have earned them. That division of earnings is not just an accident of history. It is based on the belief that profits left in the hands of those who made them are more likely to generate more profits, and so more prosperity, than any government is likely to be able to do by 'picking winners'. The best judges of profitable enterprise are successful entrepreneurs - from the hawker to the billionaire - not civil servants, or politicians.
If
you are going to engage in any enterprise, from running a market stall to running a multi-million-dollar business, you need to know where you stand, to know what the rules are. If authority has changed the rules arbitrarily in the past you cannot have that confidence even if you are assured that there is no intention to change the rules again. That is why, however desirable any particular change may seem, we have always avoided sudden radical change. It destroys confidence, over a much wider area than is affected by the particular change in question.
I believe it is, in the main, the coexistence of all these factors and their interaction that have produced the Hong Kong we know today and of which, with all its inevitable imperfections, we can be justly proud. And all these factors will continue. Not just because the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law have guaranteed their continuation in the letter and in the spirit but because they are the written and unwritten values by which we live. I and my generation of Hong Kongers were brought up on these fundamental beliefs. We know of no other way to conduct our affairs in a civilised society.
It is Hong Kong people's instinctive belief in these deeply rooted values combined with their intelligence, hard work, resourcefulness, imagination and resilience, that have transformed Hong Kong from that 'barren rock with hardly a house upon it' to the thriving, prosperous, go-ahead society it is today. Hong Kong people have achieved the miracle that is Hong Kong against all odds and despite periods of political turmoil and the ever-present uncertainties of our unique geo-political position. That is why there is not a single doubt in my mind that they will scale new heights, break new records and set even higher standards as they go forward into the 21st century and beyond. I, like so many millions of other Chinese people all over the world who have the privilege of calling Hong Kong our home, shall be with them every step of the way, cheering them on and basking in their reflected glory.