TNAG-0305-FCO40-341-Use-of-Chinese-as-official-language-in-Hong-Kong-1971 — Page 16

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REGISTRY No $1

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971168/3

Sir Murray

HCS.

2/12/26-

in student language row

THE powerful Hongkong Federation of Students yesterday sent the new Governor, Sir Murray MacLehose, an open letter and urged him to remove government red-tape.

In the letter the student organisation also demanded the Government to give an exact parity of treatment to Chinese and English as the official language of Hongkong

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Now rekerner, By for return of

submission Acquice

The students warned that Government's failure to respond to "responsible student opinion will only encourage irresponsible actions from individual members of the

public."

The Hongkong Federation of Students consists of ten post-secondary colleges and has a membership of over 12,000. The open letter to the Governor was signed by the representative council of the IRPS.

The chairman of the HKPS Language Action Committee, Mr James Chul said: "The Government is dragging its feet on the language matter, it is hoped that Sir Murray having been a diplomat will view the matter ja a more favourable Bght."

The open letter says: "We consider legalisation indispensable to guarantee the usage of the Chinese language. "We firmly believe the recognition of Chinese as-an official language is a matter of principle.

"Regrettably, since the Chinese Language Committee has submitted its final recommendations, the Government has only positively dealt with the first report on bilingualism in the councils and committees."

The student organisation's representative council urged the Governor to heed "public opinion by declaring immediately that Chinese is in principle accepted as an official language equal in status to English.

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