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Truth to tell, people in Hong Kong - better-off, better-travelled, better-educated - are just as interested in politics as anyone else. Which is to say that it doesn't dominate their lives, but they don't want to be ignored, taken for granted, taken for fools, taken for a ride, consumers of goods but never of ideas. You don't need to be a Marxist to know that that's twaddle.
Hong Kong's political life has developed. It's developed even in the last 3 years, with the government becoming more open and more accountable. Steps along a promised road. And have those steps led to Hong Kong's ruination? Look around. We're better-off than ever. Our finances are if you look at the books as prudently managed as they've always been. Our taxes, as I said, are lower. Our reserves are higher. A more open Hong Kong isn't poorer. And it's not less stable. It's richer and it's more strongly based.
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The surprise for me, it should be a surprise for anyone who looks further than the tip of the bonnet on their Mercedes, is that politics in Hong Kong is so blessedly moderate. Hong Kong has lived on the foothills of great events for 50 years. And we rush towards 1997, a momentous year though one that I'm sure Hong Kong will take in its stride. But still the debate, the dialogue, is usually civil and restrained. Nothing to get in a nervous flap about - a mark of Hong Kong's maturity and sense.
Back to that momentous year. Is 1997 going to change Hong Kong? Will all these qualities that I'm always talking about go overboard, into the harbour - cleaner. I hope, by then - in one big splash? I'm asked that question more than any other. And I usually give a pretty conventional answer.
I talk about the Joint Declaration.
I talk about geese and golden eggs: I'm sure you know that one.
I talk about "face", rather as a distinguished member of China's politburo did the other day.
I talk about the innate strength of the values that make Hong Kong special.
And I talk about the rule of law.
There's not an argument. I guess, with which you're not familiar, not an argument you haven't inspected, weighed up. pronounced on.
But let me tell you the argument 1 feel most strongly. Feel in my bones.