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movements Pagestiof203 the growth of trage ladichasa and collective bargaining in Hong Kong but without success. Some of the failure is attributed by the TUC to unnecessary restrictions in the Hong Kong Trade Union Ordinance on such matters as federation of unions and the payment of paid officials: but the Hong Kong Government have maintained that practice in these respects is more liberal than the letter of the law suggests. We suspect that deeper sociological, economic and political factors militating against normal growth and activities of a trade union movement are at work and a study is being commissioned to investigate matters further. The study will need to be low-profile and academic in character if it is to have the confidence of both sides of industry in Hong Kong; and the person appointed to carry it out will need to be acceptable to both sides of industry here if it is to carry conviction.
Conclusions
43. Our overall conclusion is that, if the present momentum of economic growth is to be maintained with the necessary underpinning of public expenditure to make Hong Kong an acceptable urban and industrial environment, the Hong Kong Government will require active and evident support of the Executive and Legislative Councils open to influence from Hong Kong opinion generally. There is no possibility of our imposing (or a Governor imposing for us) our own ideas on an unwilling population who would (rightly) feel that only those conversant with the local situation
are in a position to judge what is in the best interests of Hong Kong. (To take only one example, there may well be a majority in the Legislative Council, however it is composed, who would regard
entrepreneurial vigour as a sine qua non of Hong Kong's existence and high taxation on social democratic
lines as debilitating to that regard). But, equally, institutional change is necessary if HMG, in the discharge of its constitutional responsibilities to
Parliament for the welfare of the inhabitants of the
Colony, is to be convinced that Hong Kong public
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