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Council. Are we right in believing that this is now accepted by the existing members of the Executive and Legislative Councils?
2. The Governor's proposals (see Appendix A attached) goes some way to meet our desire to see representation of wage earners on the Council; and we realise that, to secure this radical (in Hong Kong terms) change, some balance between old style and new style members is necessary among the new appointments.
3. We recognise the difficulties in Hong Kong terms of appointing a trade unionist to LegCo this time but it would be virtually impossible to defend a decision not to do so here. The Governor's suggestion that he might appoint the chairman of a public service union is a most useful one and we strongly urge him so to proceed. This would do a great deal to persuade opinion here that the interests of wage earners are now to be represented in the Hong Kong Government.
[The Governor's proposals are explained and analysed in Appendix A attached.]*
4.
The question of whether or not to return to the former constitutional position whereby the functions of the Legislative and Executive Councils are separate and distinguishable, is a finely balanced one. The present system certainly seems to assure a high degree of cohesiveness and perhaps more rapid decision making; but this, we believe, is at the expense of a more public airing of issues of public concern and contributes to the perhaps unjustified feeling that too much is settled behind the scenes. It may also be that the decision to appoint LegCo members from a wider social background might in any case undermine the present cohesiveness and prompt the Hong Kong Government of its own accord to make a clearer distinction between the Executive and Legislative functions.
5. We do not think this is a matter which can be settled without a good deal more thought and are content to have it looked at over a period of time. We entirely accept that the Governor's long experience in working the present system must carry great weight.
BRITAIN/HONG KONG RELATIONS (paras 33-36)
1.
We were unable to accept the Colonial Secretary's redraft of para 33 (attached to the Governor's letter of 2 July to Mr Cortazzi)
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