XN000022-1995-04-02 — Page 3

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I felt exactly the same sense of energy and drive, mostly harnessed to a decent cause, when I arrived as Governor nearly three years ago. Back in those days, the West Kowloon reclamation had hardly begun. There was no mighty bridge at Tsing Ma, just designs on a drawing board. No airport growing up out of the sea off the northern Lantau coast. No Western Crossing starting to tunnel below the waters of our great harbour.

Nor for that matter had we in those days started to address, started but far from finished, the task of giving the disabled a decent deal - in the office, the factory, the home, on the buses and the trains, in hostels and training centres. We had less generous welfare provision than we've got today. Taxes were higher. Inflation was above today's level, too. And crime was higher, as a matter of fact. What was just the same, exactly the same, was the throbbing market economy in a gloomy world, an economy with a smile. And, most of the time, an economy with a heart as well. And so it should have. In a civilised and decent society, the better-off help those in need. That's a duty, and in a way a privilege. A duty and a privilege in Hong Kong, just like everywhere else.

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But unlike a lot of other places. Hong Kong doesn't suffer from some of the mortal sins that impoverish other societies, impoverish them morally, and economically as well in due course. There's a bit of corruption. But not much, and we crack down on corruption very hard wherever we find it. And the international view is that we've got just about the cleanest procedures for handing out government business and handing out government contracts in the world. We don't suffer from over- government. Too much red tape, maybe, from time to time, but according to business magazines and think- tanks, this is just about the most business-friendly place in the world.

There's another virtue which I think we should celebrate. We don't allow envy to masquerade as economic policy. I'm sure you know what I mean. We're not jealous of others who get on, make a fortune, buy a big car. Class-war isn't the root of our politics, thank heavens.

But naturally we do have political arguments. Is that un-Hong Kong, un- Asian? Well, hardly. I think it's rather patronising when people suggest that Hong Kong families aren't really interested in politics, in their futures, in helping to shape their own lives. That tends to be an excuse for not wanting to listen to what Ilong Kong people have to say. If you don't want to listen to the answer, pretend that no one is interested in the question.