市政局.政府合署西座十三樓
RECEIVED
RCS
N: 52
23 JAN:975
NXXS / SV / 2
Lord Gorenwy Roberts,
Whitehall,
London.
Dear Sir,
URBAN
COUNCIL
市政局
LAST
itklod fur haft reply fimm hud G.
14th. January, 1975.
please
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NEXT
REF.
(29) 9(33
ра
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I regret that I shall be unable to meet you, as the meeting has been arranged on my ward day when I have prior appointments to meet 50 - 60 people with problems. In any case, the short time will not provide adequate opportunities for you to hear anything from the grassreets which a few of our Members try to represent. It is no doubt intended that you should hear all from Government appointees, net from the people.
From a source at the Legislative Council, I have been told that you will be asked, on Government instructions to these appointees
●n that Council, what you can do to counteract the bad image of Hong Kong at present being painted in the United Kingdom. The Government and its appointees, who have made themselves millionaires through their privileged position, are frightened in case real changes are made, and if they ask for a workers' representative to be appointed to the Council, you can be assured that that representative will be a pre-Government traiter to the workers. Here in Hong Kong we deal only with democratic decorations, not realities.
I have no doubt you will also be begged to restore capital punishment. Some of the murders in Hong Kong are so brutal that one feels
●ne could kill the person who committed them. For such brutes I have little sympathy. However, before restoring capital punishment (and I hope you will not do so), please reform the police, or we shall certainly be hanging scapegoats and not real murderers most of the time. When we had capital punishment years ago, the youngest member of a gang was forced to admit to a murder, even though he played no part in it. The real gangsters are escaping, because many Triads have Government friends and some are even wearing the Queen's honours. Moreover, as Police and Triads werk together, the Police will never arrest a seaier Triad member, no matter what his crime may be.
1
You will give the stock reply handed out to all M. P.s on their visits, which I suspect is their briefing either here or in London, that in Hong Kong we cannot have real constitutional changes because "China wouldn't like it". No one believes this, except those who want to believe it for their own benefit. Macau will no doubt show us soon that Portugal at least does not believe that. The Portugal which Britain once criticised for its colonial policies is now leaving ●ur "democratic" Britain a long way behind, is showing how shallow British policy is, how unsocial the socialist Government is, how far removed from knowing the workers of their colonies. The situation in Ireland and in Rhodesia could only have resulted from decades of neglect of democracy such as we now suffer from in Hong Kong. I apologise for my straight talking. When I did some straight- talking about corruption, no one believed me because no one wanted to.
Yours sincerely,
thie Elliott
•
The Urban Council, Central Government Offices, West Wing, 12/F., Hongkong
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