TNAG-0305-FCO40-341-Use-of-Chinese-as-official-language-in-Hong-Kong-1971 — Page 77

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ccm hand

HKFS

hong kong federation of students

{CEIVED IN R.GISTRY No. 51

100071971

нкк 8/3

Mr. Anthony Royle,

香港專上學生聯會

23c waterloo road, kowloon hong kong 九龍窩打老道 二 十三 號C

tel. k-888137, 840048, 840049

telegram "HKFSTUDENT"

9th October 1971.

Parliamentary Under-secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London S.W.1

Dear Mr. Royle,

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HONG KONG DEPT.

Further to my letter dated 30th August 1971 of which I received no reply, I am writing again to seek your opinion on the matter of a legislative declaration of Chinese and English as official languages of Hong Kong, equal in status, and with the use of Chinese defined in specific areas.

The Legal Subcommittee of HKFS Language Study Committee had attempted to draft a piece of legislation to the effect, and well aware of the limitation in experience and knowledge, only hopes that it may serve as a proposition for discussion. A copy of the paper is enclosed for your reference (Appendix A).

The paper had been presented to the Deputy Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr. J. Sweetman at a meeting on 10th September and Sir Kenneth Ping-fan Fung and the Hon. P.C.Woo, Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils respectively on 14th September. We are glad that the two Unofficial Members are sympathetic to our cause, and one of them said he saw no problem of raising a question on a legislative declaration in the Legislative Council at an opportune moment. As I stated earlier that HKFS considers the whole matter a local issue, and that the Legislative Council is in the right position to deal with the matter without any change in the Letters Patent and Royal Instructions. Your opinion on this point will be much appreciated.

Complete sets of HKFS papers including an Open Letter to all Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils were sent to all members of UMELCO. (Appendix B) It is doubtful if UMELCO, in the absence of elected represent- ation in the Councils, can evade its responsibility of making a public stand on the issue.

HKFS recently received a letter of support from the National Union of Students of the United Kingdom, a copy of which is being enclosed believe NUS will soon be writing to the British and Hong Kong Governments. ·

I have also written separately to Sir Murray Maclehose, Governor-designate of Hong Kong, expressing our sentiments and our hope to discuss the issue with him when he arrives at Hong Kong. You are requested to pass on the papers (in separate oover) to him.

um dty

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