-
2 -
5.
This apathetic condition, in so far as it reflects positive
contentment, may be flattering to the system of Government hitherto
prevailing in Hong Kong and to the Government itself, but it manifestly
needs to be overcome by political education and by an insistence on the
transfer of responsibility, if Hong Kong is ever to develop an active
sense of citizenship and to become capable of openly expressing and giving
practical effect to the general desire of its inhabitants to remain under
British rule and to resist absorption by China.
6. It is in part to this very desire, widespread but largely
surrentitious, that I ascribe the apprehensions which lead to a distaste
for internal political change. It is generally believed that any
developments which involve the transfer of power to representatives of the
people, whether elected or nominated, will strengthen the hold which
political agents from China are gaining over the institutions and activities
of the people of Hong Kong. It is very apparent that among both Chinese
and non-Chinese residents of Hong Kong there is an increasing fear lest
local institutions, including the prospective Municipality, may become
more and more the tools of the Kuomintang; so that the possibility of a
Municipality being established which might at the dictation of that
organization declare itself to be in favour of the retrocession of Hong
Kong to China is a very real menace in the minds of many thinking people.
There are good grounds for these fears. There can be no shadow of doubt
that Chinese political parties would seek to use the Municipal Council for
their own ends. It is consequently most necessary, as I have suggested in
my open despatch, that the constitution should be so framed as to preclude
the possibility of the Council concerning itself with political matters,
particularly in relation to the future status of the Colony.
7.
Another ground for the reluctance of some of the Chinese
inhabitants of Hong Kong to participate in the planning of a new
Constitution is to be sought in apprehensions of a somewhat different
nature.
There are undoubtedly many Hong Kong Chinese who regard it as
that the British
probable - there are even some who regard it as certain
Government will be unable to resist China's demand for the return of Hong
Kong, and that the Colony will within the next few years be given up.
These