Note:
E
Saturday, January 26, 1974
The following item is embargoed
until 8 p.m. tonight (Saturday).
UNIVERSITIES URGED TO BECOME MORE INVOLVED IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Financial
Secretary Calls For Constructive Criticism
**
The Financial Secretary, Mr. Philip Haddon-Cave, this evening
called on the universities to play a positive role in the management of
the community's affairs and encouraged them to criticise the govornment's
handling of public affairs.
Addressing the Hong Kong University Economics Society Ball, Mr. Haddon- Cave said the whole purpose of education was to sharpen the critical faculty and therefore students and staff "have a particular obligation to take a view on government policies and programmes and express that view in discussion and
the printed word."
Students in the Economics Department had special opportunities to do
this, he added, for not only were economic questions in Hong Kong of peculiar
importance, but of peculiar complexity as well.
both directly and via
Essentially, he said, the Hong Kong styl. of government was one by consultation and consent with a dependence of feedback of information from
community organisations and from the public at largo advisory boards and committees -- and with a dependence on "lively and critical comment" by and through the news media and by such groups as the Economics Society.
/The universitics, .............