XN000022-1995-12-02+03 — Page 9

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Even as the crowds streamed home - some presumably having done better than me a small group of very distinguished American think-tankers and scholars was arriving in Hong Kong, carrying under their arms heavy volumes which summarised their judgements on the economies of the world, ours included. They come from a celebrated Washington number-crunching, philosophy-thumping organisation called the Heritage Foundation. Every year they survey the economies of the world and pronounce their verdict. What are they searching for? It doesn't have to be grey or divisible by three. But it is the sort of thing you'd want to put your money on. What they are looking for is the free-est economy in the world.

Their index of freedom covers all the traditional long term guarantees of economic health and social harmony. They comb through all the statistics and the policies and the records, looking at the rule of law and tax and prudent spending policies - prudent spending policies and regulation and de-regulation and open markets and hands-off or hands-on policies on business. They have ten tests like that. And when they've measured performance, they tot up the figures and give an overall

assessment.

You may have read the result already, or guessed it from my breathless build- up. Yes, Hong Kong won once again - at a canter. Last year they placed us first equal with Singapore. This year we were out front on our own, winners by at least a head.

Hong Kong - the free-est economy in the world.

Now, it's not patronising to suggest that most of those at Happy Valley last Saturday evening have probably never heard of the Heritage Foundation and its Freedom Index. But they won't have been surprised by its conclusions. They know we've got a system which is unbeatable - free, decent and successful. They know that their way of life which includes the right to keep the Jockey Club well-endowed through the proceeds of their free choices about what to do with their own money they know that their way of life is admired by the rest of the world. They want their way of life to continue.

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I hope all those who make a lot of noise in the next year and a half will remember that. I hope they'll recognise that their responsibility to safeguard that way of life transcends all else ambition, fear, puzzlement, duty, worry. Let's hold on to a few simple truths.

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What was really the best sight at Happy Valley? Simple. Free men and free women enjoying themselves in a free society. A free Chinese society. A free Chinese society that's worth betting on and worth standing up for.

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