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are therefore that official members should be limited to the four ex-officio members in the existing proposals and that unofficial members should be increased by rasing the Governor's nominees from four to five.

7.

Attention was then turned to the proposal that the franchise of the Urban Council should be extended to include all British subjects even if they do not qualify under Section 3 of the Urban Council Ordinance, 1935. Members agreed that it would be undesirable to exclude from the new franchise for the Legislative Council any person who would have been able to vote under the 1949 proposals. It was also agreed that the necessary preparation to provide for a wider franchise for the Urban Council would not take so long as preparation for a full scale British subject franchise for Legislative Council. A certain amount of delay would, however, be inevitable in compiling a list of persons eligible to vote and in checking their claims to be British subjects. You are aware that possession of a birth certificate by a Chinese is the exception rather than the rule and that the majority of cases would, therefore, have to be investigated by the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs. Such investigation would have to be reasonably thorough, since acceptance. of the claim would presumably mean that the person would be eligible to receive a British passport, would not be liable to deportation and so on. Although it is not expected that large numbers of persons will come forward, it might well happen that some interested party might incite people to come forward and apply.

8.

A happy compromise was therefore suggested whereby the matter should be handled in two stages. The first stage would be to amend the constitution of the Urban Council, without amending the franchise. The present constitution of the Urban Council is a Chairman, four ex-officio members, six nominated members (three of whom are 'Chinese), and two elected members (elections being at present in abeyance). propose that the number of ex-officio members should be reduced from four to two and that the number of elected members should be increased from two to four; the number of nominated members would remain the same. These changes could be made with expedition and the new Urban Council would then elect from itself two members to serve on the Legislative Council, for a limited period.

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9.

The second stage would be to amend the Urban Council Ordinance in order to extend the franchise to British subjects who did not qualify under section 3. After the elections consequent thereon had been completed, the revised Urban Council would then hold a new election to choose two members to serve on Legislative Council

unless of. and the original two would stand down - course they happened to be re-elected. If this propos al is acceptable at your end, paragraph 5 of the draft despatch can stand, and the idea of proceeding by two stages would be put forward by the Unofficials in Legislative Council and in due course be publicly accepted by the Secretary of State. The advantage of

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