CO537-6046 — Page 315

1

1.1.V. (73) / 1949, and (23)|/1949,

27/1/50,

mins

of

22/5/50

14/6

and

{

I should place on record that in the course of an interesting discussion yesterday with Mr. K.M.A. Barnett, Grade I Officer in Hong Kong who is married to a Chinese wife and who is usually, I think, well informed on Chinese public opinion, he told me that the European commercial leaders are the people who are really anxious for constitutional progress on the lines of an unofficial majority because they think that they will then be able to run the affairs of Hong Kong for their own ends.

The Chinese community, on the other hand, are just as anxious to stop them doing this and there is very little real desire for constitutional reform on the part of the Chinese.

I gathered from Mr. Barnett that his feeling was that some thing considerably less than the large unofficial majority which has been suggested would be quite sufficient to meet the case.

He told me that in the New Territories there is a very interesting system of election for the village councils there. It is a sort of half-way house Chinese and European ideas, but that in general the Chinese do not understand or appreciate the advantages of elections as understood in the West with all the paraphernalia and 'what-not' of canvassing etc. etc.

He added that the Chinese Reform Association was largely a 'one-man show'.

All this goes to support what is said in Sir Charles Jeffries Minute of 19.5.50.

Bring up 14th June.

almer 23.5.50

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