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the following substituted: "Lest there should be any tendency on the part of irresponsible persons to procure an excessive number of nomina- tions, it might be desirable to require the nomination papers to be signed by the proposer and seconder and 18 (instead of 8) other electors.
5. A question to be decided w is whether the official reply to Sir M. Young's despatch should be got off at once or whether we should wait until we have finally settled the point about the qualifica- tions for the franchise. Paragraph 8(IX) of the savingram at No. 30 stated that, unless Sir M. Young wished to propose some modification of his despatch on this point before it is published, our official reply would reserve the question of electoral qualifications for further consideration. Since then, however, we have asked that consideration be given to the question of the use of the electoral colleges system in place of the ballot box, and for this reason I suggest we should wait until we have the Acting Governor's views on this important question before our official reply is sent off. Meanwhile, we can be drafting the remainder of the despatch in the Department.
6. On the basis of the suggestions in this minute, for the length of which I apologise, I submit for consideration a draft telegram to the Acting Governor, dealing with certain of the above points, and a draft savingram, dealing with the proposed amendments to Sir M. Young's despatch of the 22nd October. I pass these drafts through Mr. Roberts-Wray for his comments, in particular on the question of the qualifications for the franchise.
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Sir M. Young's despatch at No.47 encloses
I a minute written by Mr. Hazlerigg before the latter's departure, dealing with the question of the practical ! steps which form a necessary preliminary to the
setting up of the proposed Council. The covering despatch also asks that arrangements be made to obtain the services of an experienced Town Clerk from this country for a period of about two years, to supervise the establishment of Municipal Government in Hong Kong.
I am having the duplicate of this despatch registered on a new sub file, so that we can consider separately the question of appointing an experienced Town Clerk on secondment.
Mr. Hazlerigg's minute goes into very great detail, but as it is written on the basis of a ballot box system, there is not much point in considering it in detail until we know whether Hong Kong wish to adhere to this system rather than that of electoral colleges. Paragraph 11 of Mr. Hazlerigg's minute estimates the registration and election staff requirements. X on page 7 of that minute states that the registration staff would be required for 3 to 4 months and a similar but reduced staff would be required yearly. I am not clear why any such staff would be required yearly, since Sir M. Young's recommendation in paragraph 18 of his despatch of the 22nd October was that the Councillors should retire in a body every third year, and not that one-third
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