TNAG-0215-FCO40-251-Appointments-to-membership-of-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Ko-1970 — Page 113

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will fin

person. I share the Governor's views on

this point.

6.

Another possibility that we have had

under consideration for some time is that the

Governor might appoint to the Legislative

Council one or two elected members of the

Urban Council. The Governor's view is that,

although such a course would be possible in

principle, members of the Urban Council cannot

be said to be in any way representative of

anyone other than the westernised middle class

and that they are, if anything, drawn from an

even narrower field than are the members of

the Executive and Legislative Councils.

has he a high opinion of the present elected

members of the Urban Council.

7.

Nor

I would not wish to quarrel with any of the principles set out in paragraph 4 above,

although I have some reservations about the

Governor's argument against the payment of

unofficial members.

But given that these

principles are acceptable, Change is ever-

theless needed in the membership of the central

councils of government;

and that change is

required not so much in the spheres of activity

and know-how represented by that membership

but

as in the attitudes and values of those

appointed. They should be people who fulfil

the principles set out by the Governor:

equally they should be persons of independent

thought and approach who do not come from the

same "stable" as those whose main aim (either

from motives of self-interest or from a rigid and traditional dislike of change simply because it is change) is to preserve the status quo in the present "mandarin" form of governmen

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