XN000022-1995-03-28 — Page 5

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Governor: No, I very much hope that it won't. He is as you know coming up to pensionable age. He has given, I think, 34 years of excellent service to the Royal Hong Kong Police and to the community. And I think that he has been making a decision based on the length of his service and on his pensionable entitlement. But I am sure that with an outstanding Commissioner and with morale as high as it's been in the Police force we'll continue to see a good recruitment, continuing commitment to the highest professional standards in the force. Everyone knows, I think, that we've got what is generally regarded as the finest Police force in Asia and possibly one of the finest well beyond Asia as well. And I intend to do everything we can to ensure that that continues.

Question: Are you concerned that other officers, or in fact others in the civil service will follow his ...?

Governor: We very much hope that we can do everything possible to ensure that morale in the civil service and in the police is as high as possible. I've said before that there are many reasons why people consider retirement, or leaving public service. I don't think that many of them, even though some of them are of course personally based, as I think is the case that you mentioned, there are very few I think which relate to anything that may happen before June 30, 1997. And I hope that through deeds as well as words our colleagues in China will be able to give reassurances to the civil service and we'll be doing everything we can to make clear our commitment to the highest standard of public service and to doing everything possible to ensure that Hong Kong retains an outstanding civil service.

Question: What do you expect from Lady Thatcher's visit to China can help the Sino- British relationship and Hong Kong's transition?

Governor: I think that any visit by a leader as prominent and distinguished as Lady Thatcher should help in building up understanding. Lady Thatcher was of course one of the architects of the Joint Declaration. She knows personally many of the Chinese leaders and I hope that she will be able to reaffirm to them the importance of standing by the spirit and the letter of the Joint Declaration. I'm sure that she'll want to point to Hong Kong's continuing successes. 10 years, 11 years after the Joint Declaration, Hong Kong has still been doing outstandingly well. I imagine she'll want to underline the importance of Chinese leaders' giving reassurance to Hong Kong and beyond Hong Kong, not only through words by also through action as well. Words speak loudly but deeds speak even more loudly.

Question: Is it her mission to urge the Chinese counterparts to speed up the JLG agenda?