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I have noted with much satisfaction that your proposals
include recommendations for an Unofficial Majority in the
Legislative Council, and I share your view that membership of
the Council must be confined to British subjects. The
proposal that the electorate must equally be limited to persons
who are prepared to establish their claim to be British subjects
would however, have the effect, in practice, of limiting the
proposed franchise to a very small proportion of the present
but this is inevitable if direct cleation on the lones and for this reason I consider that
population of Hong Kong,
untuk
yon propant que la le dita it is open-to-objection.
I should therefore be glad if further
consideration could be given to the possibility of devising
other means, whereby the process for the selection of unofficial
members of Legislative Council would be placed on a broader
basis, in which non-British, as well as British, interests could
participate.
If it were found necessary, in order to achieve
this object, I would not exclude from this review the adoption
of some process of indirect election. Indeed such an arrange-
ment, if it proved practicable, might avoid the considerable
delay which would certainly be necessitated if an electoral
law for Hong Kong had to be drafted and enacted, electoral
districts delimited, and the whole machinery for holding
elections set up. In this connection, I am aware from my
discussions with you that it would be difficult under present
circumstances to make the staff with sufficient experience
available for this work.
5. I note that your proposals do not contemplate any further
development of the Urban Council at this stage until certain
difficulties which are dealt with in paragraphs 28 to 30 of
your despatch under reply have been resolved. But if it were
decided to adopt a system of election to the Legislature on
some such alternative basis as that proposed in paragraph 4
above, I feel that it would be a matter of considerable
importance that in the management of Urban Council affairs the
election of members, which has, I understand, been in abeyance
/ since