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Mr Stuart
HK/IOD
LABOUR AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS IN HONG KONG
1.
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As reported by Mr Shaw, Motion 42 was endorsed by last week's Trades Union Congress without debate. (Mr Shaw's minute to Mr Wotton of 10 September refers).
2. It should not be thought that because the Motion went through quietly that that is the end of the matter. The words of the Motion are quite categoric: "Congress requests the General Council to investigate the social and economic conditions and the state of industrial relations there and, where necessary, to bring pressure to bear on the United Kingdom Government to effect improvement by more effective legislation". Lack of discussion, moreover, should not be taken as an indication of lack of interest. All business relegated to the last day of the Congress receives pretty summary treatment. Indeed, this Motion was to have been taken on Thursday, 5 September. The Secretary of State was on the platform and quite a few speakers intended to intervene when the Motion came up. But due to an Emergency Resolution being brought forward, the business of the Congress stopped just short of Motion 42 when the Prime Minister entered to make his Speech to Congress. After the speech he remained on the platform but the Chairman;' for some odd reason, instead of completing the Enternational section of the TUC report, moved to another section. But for this aberration, the Hong Kong Mation would have been debated in front of the Prime Minister and Mr Callaghan.
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3. There is considerable disquiet at Congress House about Hong Kong, and Mr Jones, Chairman of the Inter- national Committee, expressed some of this when opening the debate on the International section of the report to Congress. The International Committee of the Labour Party is also disquieted. Mr James Sillars, MF, may be backing the wrong horse in supporting a tenden- tious and in many places inaccurate booklet about Hong Kong - "A Case to Answer" but there is a good deal of Parliamentary interest in Hong Kong's affairs.
46 My conclusion is that we can expect growing pressure for some kind of independent examination from London of Hong Kong's social and economic conditions. My own view, which has been often enough expressed in my reports, is that social progress in Hong Kong is too slow and this I think is inevitable when both the Legislature and the Executive Council represent ,predominantly the business and commercial elements Ain Hong Kong life.
12 September 1974
cc.
Mr Male
G Foggon
Overseas Labour adviser
Ps to Lord Gorohwy-Roberts Sir Jucar Watson
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