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Khimika Hird
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4. I do not criticise him for that. But he negotiated at all times on his own or together with the Official members of the Executive Council, by reference to the views of the 'Unofficials' who in turn were cited as representing opinion in the Colony as a whole. I met the Unofficials, from both the Executive and Legislative Councils, on two major occasions. The views they forcibly expressed were certainly those put to me by the Governor in negotiations. Similarly, and as time went by, newspaper reports suggested strong and growing resistance to what were thought to be my demands. But in the last resort, such are the anomalies of the Colonial situation, I could not always be sure who was manipulating whom.
5.
Nevertheless, it was plain that a jump from paying 17% of the cost of the garrison to paying 75% (in cash terms, an almost four-fold increase) was more than Hong Kong could stomach. Whatever we may think of Hong Kong's prosperity and of low rates of taxation, they are passing through what they regard as a slump and are potentially vulnerable to a massive withdrawal of investment. The point was also made by the Unofficials that, apart from a huge public housing programme, they were increasing their spending on social services and on the relief of a poverty more acute than anything known in Britain.
6. There was overall an assumption, not always articulated, that the very existence of a Colonial relationship placed moral obligations on Britain. It is certainly true that
the absence of elected government and the visible signs of Britain's continuing imperial presence, made the idea of
I could Hong Kong paying its own way sound rather false. point to no parallel whereby the largest part of the cost of a Colony's defence had been placed on the Colony itself. Hong Kong is, of course, an anachronism which makes the rules of the game unique.
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