XN000022-1997-04-20 — Page 4

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The result is that Hong Kong was promised a consultation exercise, and the document to launch that dialogue was published last week. Now we must all assume that the consultation is genuine. That it's not just a political tactic. So if people still feel strongly about the issue, as they seem to do, I hope they'll speak up. And I hope they'll be listened to. Unless the community has suddenly undergone a complete conversion, we know what the message will be.

And then what? Some people say, "It doesn't matter what we say. Minds are made up. Chinese officials have laid down the law and we've just got to make the best of it."

You know I'm not sure that's true. Indeed it mustn't be true. Chinese officials are forever saying that it's for Hong Kong to decide how to manage these things. So if Hong Kong decides that it wants things to remain as they are, then Hong Kong's future government should relay that unequivocal message to Peking. It should say, very simply, "You may not like this, but we have to tell you that Hong Kong wants things to stay as they are. Do please trust Hong Kong to behave sensibly and responsibly. If you trust Hong Kong to do that, I'm sure it will."

If no one is prepared to say that, then what are we to conclude about the consultation, and what are we to conclude about Hong Kong's autonomy and about the promises that Hong Kong's way of life will be preserved?

I wonder, incidentally, what the results would have been if there had been a proper consultation about whether, and if so how, our arrangements for electing the Legislative Council should be changed. Record numbers of people registered for those elections and voted in them. They know that the elections were fair. As do the candidates who stood in them winners and losers. Some of those defeated candidates - now members of the provisional legislature -admitted at the time that the rules of the game had been fair and they were content to abide by the outcome.

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So would people in Hong Kong have pressed for change? No, the changes proposed are China-driven not Hong Kong driven, that's why the Preparatory Committee is in the driving seat. Why is change necessary? Not because there are Not because the present any breaches of the Joint Declaration or Basic Law. arrangements threaten the good administration of Hong Kong. But because these arrangements produce what some people regard as the wrong results.