TNAG-0213-FCO40-249-Appointments-of-membership-to-Executive-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1970 — Page 143

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wealth will increase!).

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If only one place, between

Kwan and Kan, becomes vacant, I would give first preference to Mrs. Li.

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To revert now to the Chamber of Commerce and JP seats: you will recall that 2 years ago I undertook to see if these rights of nomination could not be extinguished. I have been probing gently into this ever since. The JPS have had this privilege since 1850, when they nominated the first two unofficials to sit on Council (see Endacott - "Government & People in

You are also, of course, aware Hong Kong", page 45 ff). of the high value attached locally to being appointed as J.P. All my enquiries indicate that any attempt to extinguish this privilege would be misunderstood and resented, and I see no purpose in pressing the matter further for the present.

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The Chamber of Commerce nomination appears to derive from 1884 (Endacott p. 100) and it is now fairly clear to me that it is a custom on which the UK-British business community particularly, and the foreign business community to some extent, set increasing store as their representation relative to the Chinese in Council diminishes. It has been put to me on more than one occasion that I should not allow the UK-British representation to fall below two and preferably three.. It is easier to do this if one member is almost automatically UK-British, by reason of Chamber of Commerce nomination.

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Nor is this a purely UK-British view influential Chinese, other than, perhaps, a few, support rather than oppose the continuance of the present system of Chamber of Commerce nomination, and the maintenance of This a reasonable UK-British representation in Council. latter is further evidenced by the fact that, so far, the JPS have always nominated a non-Chinese, and usually a UK-British person, to the JP seat: though this habit may well change before long. If it does change the continuance of the Chamber of Commerce nomination will mean that I shall only have to nominate one UK-British to preserve 2 seats for this section of the community. The not-inconsiderable depth and spread of the feeling that Hong Kong should be a cosmopolitan and not just a Chinese city is still rather surprising, although it may well be losing force gradually as newcomers and a new generation gradually swamp the old Hong Kong attitudes.

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It is further to be noted that the S.N. Chau/HK Federation of Industries agitation for á

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