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established as a purely advisory body under its own Ordinance; and a quite complex system of rural advisory bodies variously constituted and with rather vague functions. In these bodies and in the Heung Yee Kuk it can be generally said that elected office goes to the highest bidder, and their usefulness varies greatly from area to area. Furthermore, in the urban areas we have the many Kai Fongs some of which (perhaps all I have not checked) are incorporated bodies. They
have elected office-bearers and their functions are neither clearly nor uniformly defined; an impression of their activities may be gained from paragraph 13 of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs' Annual Departmental Report for 1963/64; their influence, reliability and effectiveness, like that of the Rural Committees, varies considerably from area to area.
1 Now it may be that the somewhat unusual systems evolved here do best suit our needs and circumstances, and that we should continue to let them develop ad hoc; but I have felt that at least we should decide consciously to continue to proceed in this way, if examination indeed shews that this is the best (or only practicable) way to proceed.
While
u Moreover, the reasons for deferring the 1954 proposals are less valid than they were. we are still under no particular pressure to introduce systems of local government in the rural New Territories, a decision will have to be taken fairly soon on whether to include Tsuen Wan in the area of the Urban Council's responsibility or not. A growing industrial city cannot remain indefinitely under a comparatively junior District Officer. The need to take this decision, however, raises in acute form the whole subject of the pretensions of the elected members of the Urban Council. Their ambitions appear to be headed towards increasing both the geographical and the functional scope of the Council, while also increasing the elected element in it.
Finally, if they had their way, the Council might attain a position somewhat akin to a French Colonial style legislature containing an elected majority but with severely restricted powers. This, I suggest, cannot be tolerated and the time is coming when the Page 68 Peeted members ambitions must be circumscris 69 of 344
give them their due, they are politically wholly
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