TNAG-0003-FCO40-39-Commission-of-Enquiry-into-the-Kowloon-disturbances-addition-1968 — Page 130

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PART VI CONCLUSIONS

Report only 45 were taken up, 20 of them by the Hong Kong University Students Union. The public, in so far as it was interested, must have relied almost exclu sively on radio and newspaper summaries and many of the latter devoted mor space to the minority report of one, than to the 14 member majority view. Few papers showed any interest in presenting the reasoned arguments of the majority, large and representative though it was. They continued to regale their readers with the more palatable slogans of the opposition: and public opinion, at least in so far as it was vocal, continued to be opposed to a rise in fares.

402. Quite apart from any question of the franchise, those who sought to solve a problem like this merely by asking the public whether they wanted any rise in transport prices ignored and evaded the real issue. Probably at no time in history if a referendum had been taken on the simple question 'Do you want an increase in the price of rice or the price of bread or the price of transport?, would the answer ever have been anything but an overwhelming 'No'. But that does not solve the problem whether, without an increase, you will get sufficient bread, rice or good transport in the future: that is a matter which has to b settled by reference to something more informative than the simple process of soliciting signatures in a blank exercise book at the kerb side.

403. But, apart from the contention about past profits which, had it not been precluded by the terms of the franchise, might well have been a very cogent argument, the general line of opposition to the ferry fare increases was scarcely more sophisticated. It tended to approach the problem on the basis that, since the majority of the people did not want an increase in fares, the Government should not allow such an increase, because, by doing so, Government would be flouting the wishes of the majority; an argument which, quite apart from any question of legal rights and obligations, ignored the basic fact that the salvation and strength of Hong Kong in a hard and material world has lain in the stark realism of her economy. In general, it has not had the resources to subsidize the unprofitable and the uneconomic. It must be efficient to live and, in a free economy, efficiency requires a fair return for labour, capital and management. Without that return, the economic machine here will not operate effectively and it was to the problem of what is a fair return that the Transport Advisory Committee was addressing its mind, whilst the man in the street had been, and was being, approached in a very different manner. His emotions perhaps more than his thoughts were being enlisted and a gap was being opened between informed and uninformed opinion on this issue a very considerable and dangerous gap between the reasoned conclusions of the majority on the committee and the great mass of public opinion -however superficial or shallow the basis on which that opinion rested.

404. Whether because the existing channels were not sufficiently wide and numerous or because they were temporarily diverted or choked, it was in some sense a 'failure of communications' that opened the gap between public opinion

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