MR. ELLIS:
Gentlemen:
I know you are all extremely
grateful to the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir David Trench, for
coming along today. He is, as you know, about to start his
leave, or should have started it. In fact, he has not had much
chance to do so. There are so many people asking about Hong
Kong, interested to have the background of the situation at the
present time. He agreed to come along today.
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May I make it absolutely clear this is an
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unattributable meeting.
The intention is to help in your
background and general understanding of Hong Kong. If there
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is anything for which you want to use his name then you must ask
permission, if he agrees this should be so. It is unattributable.
SIR DAVID TRENCH: I am grateful for this opportunity
because it gives me a chance to talk to you. Where do we start?
Perhaps at the beginning would not be a bad idea.
I think it is pretty well understood now by most people
that these troubles in Hong Kong are not, of course, in any way
connected with labour matters and that the strikes and so on
are not strikes in the ordinary sense. They are merely political
stoppages. But there is a bit of a myth growing up that they
arose from genuine labour disputes and you see this sald over
and over again. There is some truth in this but I would like
just to go into the extent of the truth in it.
After the cultural revolution and after Macao the
first real insight we had
Q
perhaps I could just say my own
· Labour Department does not get attacked for not clearing up
these labour disputes
G
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after Macao and the cultural revolution
the first view we had of these cultural revolution tactics was
in connection with a dispute in the Royal Inter-Ocean Lines
which is a Dutch shipping company.
What had happened was they
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