top expatriate business group). He is President of both the Legislative Council (Legco) and the Executive Council (Exco). Senior officials are appointed from London although increasingly, with the decline in colonial work elsewhere, some are making a long-term career out of activity in Hong Kong.
The key officials beneath the Governor are the Colonial Secretary and the Finan- cial Secretary. The Executive Council has about 15 members - the Governor, 6 officials (of whom 5 ex-officio) and the rest unofficial (i.e. appointed but not ex- officio) members. Exco advises the Governor and the Colonial Secretary.16 The Legislative Council has about 26 members the Governor (with 2 votes), 12 official (of whom 4 ex-officio all also sitting on Exco) and the rest unofficial members. These two bodies, which are entirely undemocratic, represent a synthesis of the expatriate UK colonial régime and the local bourgeoisie, both Chinese and European (British and Portuguese).
In addition, there is a powerless Urban Council (Urbco) which looks after such matters as playgrounds and cemeteries. Until 1973 this had 16 ex-officio and ap- pointed members, and 10 members elected by a very small local electorate. Al- though there are formally 23 categories of people entitled to vote, many of these categories overlap. There are financial and occupational as well as residence quali- fications. In a classic example of colonial negligence, the régime does not even bother to find out how many people are in fact qualified to vote in Urbco elections. In the 1973 poll, only 8,675 people, or one quarter of one per cent of the popula- tion, actually voted. The régime welcomes this low vote as confirmation of what it calls "apathy". At most the number of persons entitled to vote for Urbco, or rather for half the members of the most powerless of all the official bodies, would come to some 6-10% of the Colony's total population. The low poll may reason- ably be understood to reflect the régime's consistent refusal of democracy.
In April 1973 Urbco was, for the first time, given a degree of financial autonomy. At the same time the appointed civil servants were removed and it was reconstituted as a body of 24 members 12 appointed and 12 elected by the same minute elec- torate as before.
The government actively fosters non-participation in innumerable ways, most importantly by simply making participation impossible and governing by what amounts to decree. When pressed, it attempts to claim that it is a democratic régime. In 1969 the Deputy Secretary for Home Affairs told an audience:
"We have no general elections for the central government and yet the general trends of government policy conform to the wishes of the mass of the people
Our methods can certainly be improved... but we do have the essential ingredients of a democracy which has produced a general understanding of the people by the government (sic) and the government by the people... We... have every intention of staying in power". 17
Earlier in the postwar period an Unofficial (i.e., appointed) Chinese member of Legco argued that it was better to have Unofficial Members appointed to the Council to represent the interests of the Colony as a whole "since no electorate could be devised to do justice to all sections of the community". What this seems to mean is that there can be no question of allowing universal franchise
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or democratic rights; and that “devising” an electorate would be more trouble than just not having one at all. This view prevails today, packaged in frequent references to "Hong Kong's special circumstances", "unique case", etc.
he importance of the effects of this situation can not be over-emphasised. There is no democracy now. The colonial régime has repeatedly indicated that there will be none in the future. No steps have been taken to introduce demo- cratisation. Rather, it has been made clear that there will never be any signifi- cant degree of democratisation under British rule. Of course, this leads to non- participation - because there is nothing to participate in. But, deeper than this, it leads to despair, cynicism and corruption. Because those making the laws represent the rich bourgeoisie, the laws acutely favour this class at the expense of the working poor. Taxation is lopsidedly geared to favour the wealthy. The courts are conducted in English - yet only a tiny percentage of the population has a working knowledge of the language. When things go wrong, as they frequently do over housing, trading, factory work, education, illness, the only things which count are money and power. The police force is notoriously corrupt as the case of Joseph Godber so clamorously revealed in 1973 to a British public sheltered from the realities of life in Britain's colony.
There is no question, naturally, of Hong Kong suddenly becoming "democratic". A democratic colony would be a contradiction in terms. The authoritarian nature of the regime is an essential factor in the colony's existence as a colony. The regime's last fallback position is the specious argument that China would frown on steps towards some democratisation in the colony. There is nothing to support such an argument.
What does need emphasising, though, is not only the class nature of the Hong Kong régime (whose economic effects are examined in more detail below), but also the fact that the administration relies heavily not only on excluding the popu- lation from a say in how it is governed, but also on force and violence of many kinds. The original seizure of the New Territories was stoutly resisted by the local inhabitants who had been sold down the river without being consulted. Whenever the proletariat struggled for its rights the regime launched its forces against it, as in 1925-26.
The two main components of the régime's apparatus of repression are the police and the army. At the end of 1973 the police force stood at 16,025 (all ranks), giving the Colony a rather higher police:population ratio than the metropolis. Moreover, since the big riots of 1966-67 the police force has been growing much faster pro- portionately than the population. Between 1965 and 1970 the police force increased by 1,500 men, reflecting the increased insecurity engendered by the anti-colonial upheavals of 1966-67.1
The police have very wide powers. Any police officer may arrest without warrant any person he suspects may be guilty of an offence - however minor this offence may be, and regardless of whether or not the officer has seen the offence committed. He may further enter on demand and search any place where any person to be ar- rested has entered or is thought to be present. An officer may also execute a war- rant without the warrant being in his possession (though he is obliged to produce it on demand as soon as possible).
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