TNAG-0117-FCO40-153-Constitutional-developments-1969 — Page 38

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SECRET

4 March, 1969

Thank you for your letter of 30 January about appointments

to the Executive and Legislative Councils.

We agree with your proposals for the appointment of nominated officials to both Councils: for extending by one year the terms of SZETO Wai and Wilfred WONG; and for leaving unchanged for the present the existing right of the Chamber of Commerce to select a representative.

When I wrote to you on 20 May about last year's appointments, I mentioned Lord Shepherd's wish that we should reflect on the question of broadening the basis of appointments to the Councils. We have done so, but I fear no new inspiration has come to us on this difficult question. A possibility we ought perhaps to consider further is nominations from among elected members of Local Authorities (though we realise the dangers if any such arrangement were to be placed on a formal or obligatory basis, or any Local Council or Councils were given a right to nominate candidates for appointment). I know the difficulties you have encountered when you have examined in the past the possibility of nominating persons from among the elected members of the Urban Council - see for example paragraph 11 of your letter to John Martin of 5 Junc, 1964;

and the events of 1967 would in any case oblige us to take a hard look at this possibility, and to consider very carefully indeed its possible external repercussions. But we would feel it worth further examination when your reorganisation of local administration is under way (limited though the initial steps may be). The other point which we think might be reviewed once more is the "closed seats" representing the Justices of the Peace and

the Chamber of Commerce.

His Excellency

Sir David Trench, GCMG., MC.

SECRET

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