CONFIDENTIAL.
overnment House,
Sir,
strukin
Hong Kong.
22nd October, 1946.
PRIN tem RINTED FOR US8/
No.182
COLONIAL
OFFICE
In my despatch No.1.5 of this date I have aressed to you
certain recommendations on the proposed revision of the Constitution of
Hong Kong.
2.
My principal recommendation, which relates to the establishment
of a Municipality, has been arrived at after full consultation with many
representative persons in Hong Kong. These consultations have been
conducted in private, and in many cases the persons who have given me their
views orally have asked that they shall be regarded as strictly confidential.
This is also true of several of those who have given me their opinions in
writing. For this and other reasons it seems desirable that I should add
some further comments in this despatch to those which accompany the detailed
recommendations contained in my open despatch.
3. As I have indicated in my open despatch a decided lack of enthusiasm
for any constitutional changes has been apparent throughout my enquiry. I
attribute this in part to apathy and in part to apprehension.
40
The questionnaire
Evidence of apathy is furnished by the insignificant response to
the invitation whereby members of the public were given an opportunity of
expressing the opinions and wishes of any part of the community on the subject
of constitutional reform, by the relatively small amount of space devoted to
the subject in the Press, and by the comments which more than one public body
has made to me on the indifference of their members.
mentioned in my broadcast address (enclosure 5 of my open despatch) appeared
in two newspapers which probably number over twenty thousand readers, but it
elicited less than one hundred replies. Of the seventy-five Chinese member
firms of the General Chamber of Commerce only one firm commented on the
report which was drawn up and circulated by the Chamber's Special Committee,
and only three letters were received from the non-Chinese members, who number
approximately two hundred.
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
ARTHUR CREECH-JONES, P.C., M.P.
RECEIVED 300T.46
O. REGY