DKOREA
to direct appointment of a member of a ward committee to ministerial rank in the UK. It was in the interest of Britain as well as Hong Kong that LegCo should remain efficient; and the experiment could not be rushed. He added in answer to Mr Ennals that there was limited scope for promotion of elected members of the Urban Council, who still came from the some mainly middle-class background as LegCo. They were in no sense the voice of the people; for the most part they were not particularly effective and they compared poorly with the calibre of LegCo's existing Unofficial members.
9.
Lord Goronwy-Roberts told Sir Murray MacLehose that
Mrs Elliott had asked to call on him whilst she was in London with an Urban Council delegation. She wished to pursue her proposal that Hong Kong should have a referendum on elected representation. Sir Murray MacLehose advised that Lord Goronwy-Roberts should not also see Mrs Elliott separately, and it was agreed that he should see all the members of the delegation at the time suggested for Mrs Elliott.
10.
Lord Goronwy-Roberts said that if Mrs Elliott raised the point he would refer to HMG's established policy on representative self-government in dependent territories but add that, in the special. circumstances of Hong Kong, he would need to be thoroughly convinced that there was an overwhelming popular desire for change. It was difficult to see how a democratic system could operate in Hong Kong without the development of pro-China and pro-KMT factions; if pressed, he would have to say, in confidence, that the recent election to the Urban Council of a pro-KMT candidate had elicited an immediate protest from the Chinese at official level.
and,
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department
24 April 1975
SECRET
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