CO537-1651 — Page 103

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5.

This apathetic condition, in so far as it reflects positive

contentment, may be flattering to the system of Government hitherto

prevailing in Hong Kong and to the Government itself, but it manifestly

needs to be overcome by political education and by an insistence on the

transfer of responsibility, if Hong Kong is ever to develop an active

sense of citizenship and to become capable of openly expressing and giving

practical effect to the general desire of its inhabitants to remain under

British rule and to resist absorption by China.

6. It is in part to this very desire, widespread but largely

surrentitious, that I ascribe the apprehensions which lead to a distaste

for internal political change. It is generally believed that any

developments which involve the transfer of power to representatives of the

people, whether elected or nominated, will strengthen the hold which

political agents from China are gaining over the institutions and activities

of the people of Hong Kong. It is very apparent that among both Chinese

and non-Chinese residents of Hong Kong there is an increasing fear lest

local institutions, including the prospective Municipality, may become

more and more the tools of the Kuomintang; so that the possibility of a

Municipality being established which might at the dictation of that

organization declare itself to be in favour of the retrocession of Hong

Kong to China is a very real menace in the minds of many thinking people.

There are good grounds for these fears. There can be no shadow of doubt

that Chinese political parties would seek to use the Municipal Council for

their own ends. It is consequently most necessary, as I have suggested in

my open despatch, that the constitution should be so framed as to preclude

the possibility of the Council concerning itself with political matters,

particularly in relation to the future status of the Colony.

7.

Another ground for the reluctance of some of the Chinese

inhabitants of Hong Kong to participate in the planning of a new

Constitution is to be sought in apprehensions of a somewhat different

nature.

There are undoubtedly many Hong Kong Chinese who regard it as

that the British

probable - there are even some who regard it as certain

Government will be unable to resist China's demand for the return of Hong

Kong, and that the Colony will within the next few years be given up.

These