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DR. LEE:-Are you aware that it has taken a long time to formulate this policy in Select Committee, and yet the conditions are flouted daily, if not by the minute?
MR. WONG:-Yes, I am aware.
CHAIRMAN:-If there are no more supplementary questions, the next item on the agenda is Motions.
MOTIONS.
(1) MR. A. de O. SALES moved the following motion:-
That this Council accept the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Future Scope and Operation of the Urban Council.
He said: Sir, earlier in the year His Excellency the Governor asked for views as to how progress could be made in local government. This Report is our answer.
I would like to make it a matter of public record how much I appreciate the full co-operation given me by all the members of the Ad Hoc Committee. Without their frank and friendly collaboration, a report potentially of such far-reaching consequence might not have been drawn up without strong dissenting opinions and entrenched minority views being pointedly expressed. To their credit, it is an unanimous Report. Of course, there are reservations: they hold them just as I do, but such reservations, no matter how seemingly important, involve in reality not broad principles but only secondary issues.
The Ad Hoc Committee has already acknowledged the very good work done by the Secretary, Mr. J. A. M. TINSON, which I repeat in this public session.
I thank my Unofficial colleagues who supported, in the Standing Committee of the Whole Council, my proposal that, as a practical measure, sub-committees should be set up to study in depth the implications of all the recommendations that have been made: scope and functions; finance; wards and districts; standing orders and procedures.
Sir, I make a plea for the Report to be examined objectively. Let the proposals stand or fall on their own merits. Let the public and the powers-that-be avoid all prejudice. For, facile comments have already been made, hasty conclusions drawn and offhanded judgments passed.
The Report recommends the setting up of an administrative council to run local affairs. It is proposed that authority be delegated to it for many of the functions which are now performed outside the scope and responsibility of the Urban Council. It seeks the surrender of some of the power now so closely exercised and jealously guarded by Government Departments ostensibly under the strict control and direct supervision of the Colonial Secretariat.
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responsibility of the Urban Council. It seeks the surrender of some of the power now so closely exercised and jealously guarded by Government Departments ostensibly under the strict control and direct supervision of the Colonial Secretariat.
Evidently, the surrender of power is a difficult exercise. Manifestly, it will meet with strong resistance. Inevitably, here as elsewhere, there must be an evolution of governmental institutions to accord with changing circumstances. For, the decentralization of authority and the delegation of responsibility should keep pace with the need of a go-ahead community for an up-to-date administrative machinery working fulltime for the well-being of the people.
Undeniably, too, there is a growing wish on the part of thinking people to have more say in their own government. But, should all this situation not be recognized, there might well be the likelihood of growing discontent and dissatisfaction. Again, should the evolutionary process not be planned intelligently and encouraged realistically, there might also be mounting frustration and increasing lack of loyalty to Hong Kong.
No one can gainsay the need for any territorial administration to be completely identified with the people. Surely, the very reason for the existence of any government here, just as it is elsewhere, is to promote the well-being of the people and secure the happiness of the majority whose permanent home Hong Kong is. Let there be a conscious and competently planned programme on the part of the Hong Kong Government to create meaningful opportunities for the local population to have a greater share in the management of their own affairs, if it is the Government's wish to win the full co-operation of the masses and to foster energetically the acceptance of a Hong Kong identity. This, Sir, would be an act of faith in the future of Hong Kong.
I now propose the motion standing in my name.
MR. BERNACCHI:-Mr. Chairman, it is with much pleasure I rise to second the resolution "that this Council accept the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Future Scope and Operation of the Urban Council." I know that individual members and individual local parties, political or otherwise, may have their own ideas on the details contained or not contained in the Report, for instance, the advantages or disadvantages of keeping the Department of the S.C.A., for which there are arguments on both sides. But the Report, as a whole, is a great step forward in history of constitutional reform at local Government level and as such, I submit, must be acceptable to the majority of this Council and the majority of the citizens of Hong Kong. The only