His Excellency
SPOMET AND
masVita
Sir Murray MacLehose KCMG MBE
HONG KONG
Dier Mary
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London S.W.1
26 June 1974
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CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN HONG KONG
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Will
1. During your recent visit here, Lord Goronwy-Roberts agreed that, subject to further refinement and discussion, the proposals for unofficial appointed Members or Ministers, set out in your Despatch of 30 May, were acceptable in principle. Subsequently we undertook to send you some preliminary comments from here, to help you make concrete proposals which could be finally considered by Ministers.
2. If the exercise is to have value, it will have to increase both the efficiency of your government and its acceptability in Hong Kong, in such a way as to harness the energies of the local people in its support. At the same time it should be made acceptable in London and particularly to Parliament, some of whose members will regard with suspicion any devolution of powers which does not involve popular elections, particularly if the new members appear to be drawn solely from the business and propertied communities. And finally, as agreed in your meeting with Lord Goronwy-Roberts, it would have to be presented to the Chinese Government in a way that did not arouse their suspicions that we were on the slope to independence or self-government.
3. This implies that the selection of the people to be appointed and the exact definition of their status, powers and responsibilities will be of the first importance. Clearly they will need to be local people of standing and ability. though not necessarily of Chinese origin, although this would have presentational advantages. This may lead you to choose much the same sort of people that you already have on UMELCO. Your advice to us is that the people of Hong Kong would have little difficulty in identifying with such leaders, and would indeed be surprised if anyone else was chosen. But this may
be less self-evident in London.
14.
The
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