Thursday, September 30, 197€
2
"You catch us at a moment of some physical disarray. Many
streets are torn up and the city's appearance is marred by construction
plant for an underground railway. It is an extraordinary fact that
Hong Kong, which has no natural resources except a harbour and people
-
though very remarkable people should have so developed that it needs
such a vast project. It is symbolic of the transformation in a short
quarter century of a comparatively small entrepot trading post into a
great industrial and financial centre.
-
"This transformation is due primarily to the enterprise and
energy of the people of Hong Kong themselves and to the goodwill they have
established with their trading partners. Also I suppose a little to the
credit of their Government.
But it has been made possible by the essential
support and guidance of the United Kingdom and the friendly relations that
exist with the Peoples' Republic of China.
"Hong Kong's international circumstances require it to be a
Dependent Territory
-
and this description sounds anomalous and old-fashioned.
But there is nothing old-fashioned about Hong Kong. Its atmosphere, es
you will have felt, is modern, alive, vigorous and free. With a free
press, an independent judiciary, and its specially evolved processes of
communication between people and Government, in respect of civil liberties
Hong Kong can hold its head high.
"It is our aim to balance prosperity and economic growth with
social progress. Hong Kong is best known for the emphasis it places on the
free operation of market forces, and its comparatively low level of taxation.
This is true and for special practical not doctrinaire reasons we think these
beneficial. Because Hong Kong is totally dependent on two things: firstly
on the retention and attraction and growth of investment to employ its
population - hence the need for a comparatively attractive level of taxation;
and secondly on the sale abroad of virtually all its products and the purchase abroad of its raw material. Because it depends so greatly on economic conditions in its markets abroad, it must be able to adjust to them and to adjust fast hence the need to allow market forces to work. I do not think that any other community in the world is subject to the same economic
factors to the same degree.
-
But