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The law has to serve the values and decency of a society like this. The law does serve those values at the moment. I hope it will continue to do so.
Mrs Elizabeth Wong: Mr President, with deference to Mr President, sir, I would like to ask the Governor a question, and the question I would like to ask the Governor is this. Governor, are you sitting comfortably, right next to an honourable gentleman who aspires to be the President of the Provisional Legislature that you considered a moment ago to be illegal?
Governor: Well, I am a man of legendary charity...
President: Same here.
Governor: and everybody has to justify their actions, particularly to those in a democracy who elected them, and everybody has to be, I guess, easy with their own conscience, and I don't seek to be judgmental about individuals. But I do take the view that if Hong Kong is to have the democratic evolution of which the honourable member spoke and which has been promised to it, then it is perfectly clear that those who are going to play the most prominent part in that democratic evolution are those who stand for the principles of democracy and don't compromise them.
I think that The New York Times was right the other day when it said that Hong Kong is a place of the future "represents a slice of the future" to get it absolutely accurate and I think the future in Hong Kong will combine political and economic liberty, whatever the problems of the next year or two.
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Mrs Elizabeth Wong: One follow-up. In many countries, parliamentary members can't really serve two sovereign powers at once because it would offend in one way or another the law of that particular land. Have you considered, Governor, or has your Administration considered, the legality of honourable members of this distinguished council serving under the sovereign power of another council either simultaneously or consecutively or concurrently? In other words, is the legal position very clear that honourable members of this Council under British sovereignty can sit at the same time as members of the Provisional Legislature coming under the Chinese sovereignty?
Governor: Well, it's said by Mr Qian Qichen not to be a legislature. It is clearly going to be a rather exotic debating society which meets on occasional Saturday mornings in Shenzhen. But if what it then does purports to be legislation and if that legislation takes effect on I July 1997, I imagine that there will be people who will wish to challenge it under the Basic Law. I mean I don't do other than repeat what every lawyer in town will tell you.