Page 173
49
on FED/G.143
CONFIDENTIAL
29th April, 1964.
(He
Dhun Ruttonjee paid a courtesy call on me yesterday. said that his few days here are by kindness of Quantas Airways, who gave him a free trip on their inaugural through flight via Hong Kong.)
He had no particular point to raise and we had a general discussion of no great consequence. But we did touch on the subject of the recently announced increase in Legislative Council membership and it might be of some help to you to know what he said (although, of course, he may only have repeated views already known to you).
He opened the discussion on this topic by saying that the increase in unofficial members would serve no useful purpose
unless the new members were selected from a wider circle of
interests than has been possible before. "Labour" should be represented. (When Carter tackled him about this after our
discussion, he said he had in mind the selection of one of the
employees' representatives on the Labour Advisory Board). There
should be a representative of the New Territories and the
Kaifongs. Somewhat inconsistently he championed the claim of
the Federation of Industries to a seat. This, he thought, might be filled by the Federation's nominee. The other interests
should be represented by persons chosen by the Governor after
due process of consultation.
We have, as you know, gone over much of this ground with
Black, except that I do not recall our considering in any correspondence over the past 2-3 years the possibility of representing the New Territories. I did not therefore seek to
draw Ruttonjee out on these propositions. I did, however, mention the point about dragging the Kaifongs into the political
arena. Here Ruttonjee was not thinking, I believe, in terms of
a member appointed specifically to represent the interests of the Kaifongs. As I understood it, his idea was that you would pick out a man who was prominent in the Kaifong movement and preferably a man who was prominent just for that very reason.
Finally,
Page 173
Page 173
Sir bavid Trench, KCMG., MC., Hong \Kong.