Sir G. Gater. (through Mr. Caine).
1. The Governor's detailed proposals in No.69 have been examined with great care and thoroughnessin Miss Ruston's minute of the 18th of November, the marginal notes to which will be a useful guide on any points you may wish to study in detail. But in case you have not the time to read the whole of No.69, which is very long, or of Miss Ruston's minute, I attach at No.73 a summary, under ten heads, of the essentials of Sir Mark Young's scheme for a Municipal Council.
2.
These
Before myself considering these proposals in detail, I will deal with the Governor's confidential despatch (No.70) which is important and should be read. The despatch discloses wide- spread apathy and certain apprehensions among large sections of the Hong Kong Chinese and also freely admits the real risk of wholesale jobbery and corruption under the new Municipal scheme. factors taken together with the possibility of disturbance, which was quite considerable during the recent elections in Shanghai, have led Mr. Mayle, in his minute of the 6th of December, to suggest that before going any further we should refer back to the Governor and invite him to consider whether we should still proceed with the scheme for a Municipal Council and, if we do proceed, whether a system of nomination might not be preferred to one of election. I discussed these points yesterday with Mr. MacDougall and found that he fully shares my view that we must still go ahead. There are several reasons for this. First, the announcement made in May last, coupled with the inquiries which Sir Mark Young has been pursuing over the past six months, make it virtually impossible to retract without serious loss of face, certainly to him and possibly to the Secretary of State. All politically minded people in or interested in Hong Kong would certainly make any withdrawal the ground for a charge of breach of faith. Secondly, Mr. MacDougall felt, and I entirely agree, that we should not overcome apathy or allay apprehension save by showing in this way and others that we intend to stay in Hong Kong, that . the people of the Colony are to be given an increasing say in its affairs and that, in Miss Ruston's phrase, an active sense of citizenship is to be fostered in the capital of the Colony. Thirdly, Mr. MacDougall has no fear that serious disturbances, such as occurred in Shanghai, would. result from elections in Hong Kong. If it were proposed that the franchise should be universal and illiterates were to be left, as they were in Shanghai, at the mercy of unscrupulous individuals at the polling booths, the position would, of course, be quite different. But with the limited electorate proposed we can confidently count, in Mr. MacDougall's opinion, on no greater disturbances than we have had at times of election in other territories.
3. I now turn to the details of No.69 as summarised in No.73. I regard the scheme on the whole as broadly conceived, well fitted to present conditions in Hong Kong, and workable. Mr. MacDougall shares these views. I can therefore confine my comments to some half dozen points which we should,
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