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to stress HMG's commitment to Hong Kong and to advise UMELCO how they could answer these criticisms. How did the Minister see the long-term future in Hong Kong?
6.
Mr. P.C. Woo said that the death sentence was
traditional in China, was used in Taiwan and Communist China and would be a great deterrent to violent crime. Mr. Oswald
Cheung said that homicides had increased from ten a year to one hundred a year - a tripling in the last ten years. This was largely attributable to the failure of the employment of the death sentence. They respected the views of Parliament but equally wanted their own views and those of Hong Kong to be respected. Sir Y.K. Kan said that the Royal Instructions to
pardon Governors gave them a duty to extend the burden on their own judgement. This should not be overruled. Sir Sidney Gordon said that Far Eastern standards and not European should apply in Hong Kong here. Mr. Hilton Cheong-Leen asked if the political climate in UK was not now more favourable to allowing the
death sentence to take its course ? Lord Goronwy-Roberts
said that it was not. Even at the height of the bombings in
Birmingham, the House of Commons had voted with an increased
It followed that it was majority against the death penalty.
best
no easier to allow the death penalty to take place in Hong Kong. The constitutional relationship between Britain and Hong Kong, which had to persist for external reasons, was a
a two-
way one. Hong Kong should consider accordingly how to make that relationship work since it was the only possible arrange-
ment.
He would report what had been said to him but held out no hope of a change on the death penalty. The fact was that there was a right of petition to the Queen, who had to act on
the advice of the Secretary of State.
7.
Mr. Hilton Cheong-Leen said that the lease on Hong Kong ran only for twenty-three more years. Why was the Minister
confident about the future ? Lord Goronwy-Roberts said that
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