democratically. Turn the District Commissioner into a civic development officer belonging to the educational side. He would also advise local governments.
The educational side will be responsible also for the general spread of sound political education and for encouraging the provision of cultural amenities until the executive governments have caught up on the appalling lack of them. The encouragement of a spirit of voluntary service to the community through suitable unofficial organisations will be a special feature of the work of the educational side.
79. I believe that something on these lines would help to develop the important new loyalties quickly and soon change the atmosphere. We should remove frustration, the governments could govern and we should be wanted to stay and help. That to my mind would be partnership government. I am not of course suggesting that the whole paraphernalia of chiefs etc. should be swept away with one stroke of the pen and nicely organized rural district councils put in their places tomorrow. I expect that in many an African rural district a constitutional monarch may be a very useful feature for long and perhaps for ever.
VII. Hong Kong,
80.
Hong Kong is apparently like Gibraltar in preferring a legislative council to a municipal. In fact it appears to place loss value on the latter than Gibraltar does.
81.
I wonder how much this is due to the fact that we have not so far developed in the colonies the kind of constitution which is both central government and municipal? The "paper" set up in Hong Kong reminds me very much of Hamburg. The area and population of both are about the same: Hamburg 158 square miles and (1938) 1,678,000, Hong Kong 391 square miles and 1,800,000. Both started as fortresses and both have seen enormous development of commerce and depended largely on the sea; both have a free port tradition. Hamburg has a long self governing and democratic tradition and trade has always been more important than politics. It was trade rather than politics which gave its strength to the Hanseatic League. Its history and development is interesting from the point of view of the present subject because in some ways it affords the closest modern parallel to the Greek city state.
82.
When we took over the control of the British Zone in 1945 we were, after eliminating the Nazi developments in the consti- tution left with ten Länder: Hanover, North-Rhine, Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Oldenberg, the Lippes, Brunswick and Bremen. In 1946 we combined North-Rhine and Westphalia and incorporated 11 the small ones except Hamburg into Hanover. This was done in order to have reasonable sized Länder and in conformity with American thought. The Germans were not consulted. Hamburg largely in view of its' tradition survived. In 1945. we endowed it with its first post war constitution, a nominated representative council (of which the model was British colonial) which had as its basis the old Free Town constitution. Local modifications from the general pattern of constitutions which were provided for Land and Local Government were allowed as the functions of the Hamburg Council had to cover Reich, Land and municipal government. The nominated Burgershaft had 80 members (one for every 15,000 inhabitants) and a senate or executive committee of 20. The constitution was a cross between Westminster and the L.0.0. The senate or executive committee was the cabinet and each member with a portfolio (I think there were 12 of these) was chairman of a committee like those of the L.C.C. (Education etc.)
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