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Miss Emily Lau: Just a short follow-up. I think being the British Government's representative in Hong Kong, it is important for the Governor to know himself what is, or what is not, in breach of the Joint Declaration and for you to say so, especially as the Chinese Government has repeatedly said that they are going to dismantle this Council and replace it with a provisional legislature. So I just don't think it's good enough for you to sit here today and say you' re not going to anticipate that. If you clearly think that it is in breach of the JD, you should say so. Say so in no uncertain terms to the British Government, to the Chinese Government and to the Hong Kong people. And also, can you confirm for us whether the Chinese have said that they intend to second cadres to work in the Hong Kong Government, both before and after 1997?
Governor: On the second point, we've had no indication that the, as far as I'm aware, of posting of cadres to the Hong Kong Administration, though if I'm not correct about that I'll certainly let the Honourable lady know.
On the first point, I was attempting diplomatically to avoid accusing anyone of breaching the law before any breach of the law, not the law, before any breach of an agreement had either been committed or conceivably contemplated, but were the situation to occur the Honourable Lady should rest content that I will make my views abundantly plain. What I have said and will continue to say, is that I think there is no reason whatsoever why this Council shouldn't continue from 1995 to 1999, every reason why it should continue and every reason for supposing and arguing vehemently that to disrupt the life of this Council in 1997 would be bad for Hong Kong and would be bad for a smooth transition.
President: Dr Law Cheung-kwok.
Dr Law Cheung-kwok (in Chinese): Mr Governor, I share your view that we must improve the economy and we can do so by increasing productivity but in paragraph 35 of the policy address we are told that since 1985 the productivity has increased by an average of 4.5% per annum. I believe most economists would share my view and that is with regard to the figures you have put forward, those figures cannot truly reflect the changes in the productivity of our labour force. If you use these figures as the basis for formulating your economic policies and if you are always complacent about the economic development of Hong Kong, then I would feel very worried indeed.
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