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3.
One must first take into account the background. Every Government is, I imagine, inflicted with what might be termed the "hostility creep while in office. Hong Kong is, of course, no exception: and it is a phenomenon which is perhaps exaggerated here by multi-racialism, a rootless community with no basic security or identity to sustain it, and opportunity to vent feelings periodically by voting to throw the rascals out.
4.
This creep, here anyway, is a selective process more than a generalized one. Almost any actions of Government, especially when ordered solutions have to be applied to difficult mass situations, leave someone dissatisfied with or without reason; and the number of such people, equally inevitably, gradually grows. Moreover the hostility creep flourishes best in times of comparative progress and prosperity, such as Hong Kong has been enjoying.
5.
Graft onto this an unprofessional, highly competitive and sensation seeking press presented with Government as a convenient target because we do not retaliate, and the result once again is the encouragement of critical public attitudes. This is the more dangerous in that, given the Colony's form of Government, we are always vulnerable to charges (however ill-founded) of being dictatorial, or insensitive to public opinion. vulnerability is the greater when leading members of the community are reluctant to defend publicly policies with which they privately agree.
Our
6.
Then there is the fact of our necessarily careful policies immediately after 1967 when, for good reasons, we leant over backwards, perhaps too much so, to keep public opinion on our side. This has encouraged a climate of popular thought which assumes Government not only will, but must, defer to any and every point of view
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