TNAG-0003-FCO40-39-Commission-of-Enquiry-into-the-Kowloon-disturbances-addition-1968 — Page 198

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manifest hostility to any transport price increases, irrespective of the

terms of the franchise, whilst the Committee was considering the question

of whether the terms of the franchise justified an increase", In other

words, the Committee was considering the problem of what is a fair roturn,

without which the economic machine in Hong Kong will not operate effectively,

whilst the emotions perhaps more than the thoughts of the public were being

onlisted.

Wide Gap

This, the Commission believes, opened a considerable and dangerous

gap between the reasoned conclusions of the majority of the Committee and

the great mass of public opinion.

The Commission says that "It was in some sense, a 'failuro of

communication' that opened the gap and it was through this wide and

dangerous gap that the demonstrators marched on the evening of the 5th and

6th, to receive from passers-by support and encouragement for their banners

and slogans,"

This "gap" is again referred to by the Commissioners in their

Concluding Statement, in which they state:-

"We have endeavoured to discharge our task by tracing, in

the earlier chapters of this Report, the impact of the

Star Ferry fare application on public opinion in Hong

Kong. On this issue a substantial gap was opened

between informed and uninformed opinion, through which

there came, early in April, groups of youthful

demonstrators whose banner-carrying, slogan-shouting

marches into the heart of Kowloon during the hours of

darkness gave rise to a level of excitement and teenage

hysteria which spilled over into violence and looting

/on the