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13.
(a) the provision of four rest days a month to manual workers and not, as required by the International Labour Convention, one rest day per week.
Even Hong Kong's critics acknowledge the valuable role played by the Government's Department of Labour in ameliorating conditions in the Colony in recent years; but they remain unconvinced that more cannot be done and suspect that resistance to change is often encountered amongst the members of the Executive and Legislative Councils and among senior officials.
There appears
to be some justification for this view; but it is impossible to be sure because any resistance is encountered behind the scenes and not in the public sessions of the Legislative Council.
Institutions
14. Further social progress in Hong Kong will depend on growing public support for the necessary legislation and acceptance of higher taxation. The normal method for mobilising this through democratic representative institutions is precluded in the case of Hong Kong. China's opposition to the development
of such institutions which could affect their claim to sovereignty and could lead to growth of KMT influence in the Colony is well understood by the local population.
15. Other more limited solutions to the problem of introducing
elective institutions have been suggested:
(a)
the election of only a few unofficial members
of the Legislative Council;
(b) appointment of a specified number of those elected
to the Urban Council (a municipal body with limited powers partly elected on a very limited franchise);
(c)
extension of the Urban Council's field of responsibility.
(a) is likely
There are, however, objections to these suggestions:
to create the same difficulties with Peking as any move towards more widespread elective processes; (b) does not take account of the generally unrepresentative character of those elected to the Urban Council; and (c) will lead to undesirable fragmentation of power within so small a community.
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