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with the British Government when the time was right.
7.
It was also not clear that people in Hong Kong were interested in the electoral process. Only a small proportion of the Urban Council electorate bothered to vote, and the elected Councillors came from more or less the same social backgrounds as the appointed members. A more promising means of widening the representation on the Legislative Council might be to appoint, in a few years' time, one or two of the natural leaders who were already beginning to emerge from the new Mutual Aid Committees (of which there were now about 1,600, covering about one million people).
8.
It was observed that Portugal was finding, in Macao, that the Chinese attitude made normal constitutional progress towards decolonisation impossible. In answer to a question from Mr McNally, Sir Murray MacLehose commented that there were some restraints on Peking, particularly since:
9.
(i)
(ii)
China earned about one-third of her total foreign exchange through Hong Kong;
China's policy towards Hong Kong was such an obvious facet of her external policy generally; and
(iii) Peking needed to woo Hong Kong's Chinese population,
who were well aware of the inferior state of living conditions in Canton.
Lord Goronwy-Roberts agreed that it was important to do nothing precipitately. Policy in Hong Kong needed to be related to the real possibility of a breakdown. It was observed that Hong Kong currently received virtually no UK aid; nor, at present, did it need any.
III Labour and Social Affairs
10.
Asked by Mr McNally about the role of Hong Kong's trade unions, Sir Murray MacLehose said that about 15% of the Colony's labour force was unionised. The unions were politically split between Communist and non-Communist, and members of the Communist unions had so far refused to serve on Government bodies. Generally, the unions' industrial functions had increased in the previous two to three years.
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