GOVERNMENT HOUSE
HONG KONG
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4:
SECRET & PERSONAL
6th September, 1950.
Why?
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5
My dean Parkin
I discussed the draft despatch which you enclosed with your letter of 14th August on Constitutional Reform with Executive Council on the 5th September. The Unofficial Members would, of course, have preferred that they should not be asked to put up another motion but they appreciate the difficulties. The general feeling was that, if any progress is to be made in the reasonably near future, there is no alternative to proceeding on the general lines proposed, though Unofficial Members were clearly anxious that they should not now be asked to accept any proposals which were obviously and markedly less "liberal" than those to which they had committed themselves by the motion of 22nd June, 1949.
For example, they observed that the proposals taken home by the Governor provided for one less Unofficial Member than the proposals included in the motion referred to above (see para. 18 of the Governor's despatch No.28 of 25th August, 1949) though it is true that the official Members are also reduced by one, They now feel that their position would be strengthened if a total of eleven Unofficials could be envisaged by increasing the Governor's nominees from four to five; I see no objection to this proposal and there may even be some potential advantage in it. One result would be, of course, that it would make it unnecessary for the Governor to have an original as well as a casting vote.
Copy ponas 3-5
проз
on 53577/50
Unban Counfil
The main point of criticism of the draft despatch centred on the proposal in paragraph 5 that the franchise of the Urban Council should be extended to include all British subjects even if they do not qualify under Section 3 of Ordinance No. 7 of 1935. In the first place it was felt to be illogical to defer a full British-subject franchise for the Legislative Council on the grounds that the preparation of electoral rolls and delimitation of
/2.
J.J. Paskin, Esq., C.M.G., Colonial Office, London. S.W.1.
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