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7th November, 1963.
I have just been looking at some interesting press reports
of remarks attributed to Dennis Healey during his visit to Hong Kong in September and in particular what he said about there being "scope for movement" in the administration of the Colony.
He seems to have been quite clear about the danger of a move in
the direction of representative Government, but suggested that
the advice the Government now gets through the Legislative
Council comes from a small number of people representing a very narrow section of the community and said "I would hope to extend the range of groups from which the Government takes advice".
Healey no doubt heard while in Hong Kong something of the ideas on this subject which seem to be in the air. For example,
as Ian Wallace reported to you at the time, when R.C. Lee saw
the Secretary of State in July he mentioned a suggestion that various professional groups (lawyers, accountants, engineers, etc.) should be invited to put forward a panel of names from which the Governor would make appointments to the Legislature.
Lee's thought was that each group might put forward three names
but that any person appointed would be chosen on his individual merit and not as a representative of a group. Much the same idea was mentioned to me by S.N. Chau, when he looked in last month on his visit to the European Common "Market countries.
It seems likely that we may have questions on this topic in the new Parliament and I am therefore writing to you now to ask for your comments so that we can be clearing our thoughts at leisure. In any case it would be extremely valuable to have your further views on the subject in the light of your long experience before you finally leave the Colony.
I have not forgotten our exchange of letters not quite two years ago (your letter of the 21st December, 1961, reference CR 1/511/60 and my reply of the 16th April, 1962). Since then
of course the constitutional set-up in Hong Kong has become
even more anomalous in view of the continuing process of "decolonisation" elsewhere, and I have heard it suggested that
there
Sir Robert Black, GCMG., OBE., Page Hongkong.
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