CO537-6046 — Page 307

10. You.

IDF POI Mai

tel. 272 See.

(8 ended) winterbottom-tec

of ʼn

5.575. minute of 6/1/50

Сбруя

Minute by Sis C.

15-3-50

54:50

11

→

1949 file

12

-Jeffries dr. 0/1/50.

13 Papers

14

& minutes of Small Territories Committee about Minute by Mr Parkin

Hambery constitution d. 19/1/50.

on 1949 file

- tybed copy at

(11) on this file)

I

1

The new Secretary of State will I imagine wish to acquaint himself with these proposals for constitutional reform in Hong Kong and with the views expressed by Mr. Creech Jones in his minute of 6/1/1950. As explained in Mr. Sidebotham's minute of 1/3/1950 it is also necessary,before trying to clear the proposals with the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, to decide whether the Governor's reserve powers will be a sufficient safeguard if the unofficial majority which he recommends is granted. It will be seen that in (6) the Ministry of Defence have particularly enquired whether the overriding authority of the Defence Commander in matters of defence and security in cases of emergency will be affected.

2. Mr. Paskin in his minute of 23/12/49, referred to the doubts felt in the Department about the size of the proposed majority of unofficial members, but the late Secretary of State in his minute said that the Governor would have reserve powers and that the risks were remote and on practical grounds should be accepted. Since then, however, it has been pointed out by Sir Charles Jeffries and Sir Kenneth Roberts-Wray that too much reliance should not be placed upon reserve powers which, in practice, can only be used very sparingly indeed and are apt to provoke acute controversy when they are used;ktif it is desired to retain more than nominal control it is better to do so openly and have something different from the common form reserve power clause.

3. Before considering this point it will perhaps be useful to review the implications of the proposed composition of the Legislative Council. There will be 11 Unofficials and

6 Officials (including the Governor). Of the Unofficials it must be assumed that the 8 elected and Chinese Members might combine against the Government who must therefore rely upon the 3 non-Chinese nominated Members to make up a

Į majority of 9. If one of these 3 were absent when a vital

vote was taken the deficiency could be made good by using the Governor's casting vote but if one were to defect, Government would be defeated. It might be remarked o that the proposal to reduce the number of Unofficials by one elected -Chinese Member and one nominated non-Chinese Member would leave the voting position in an emergency unchanged.

| 40

The nominated Europeans coulded

relied

The position therefore is that/on any issue vital to the British connection in Hong Kong defeat in the Legislative Council would be most unlikely; but on any issue which could be characterized as "domestic" or "Whitehall versus Colony", defeat would not be so unlikely, (C.f. the recent threat of all Unofficials to vote against the

Appropriation

Bill until the War Office agreed to pay satisfactory compensa- tion for requisitioned property. On the first sort of issue, if the worst happened, there would I am sure be

no hesitation in using reserve powers which would thus be

!

an