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COLONIAL RULE IN HONG KONG
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supplies the water but not the electricity, does not run - though it sub- sidizes the schools, docs cater for funerals, and owns and farms out (by auction) the Confucian temples like pawnshops. Needless to say, the reasons for these surprising contrasts are practical, not ideological.
In the upper echelons of government, on the other hand, the forms of legislation, the system of public finance, and the general constitutional framework which shapes Dr Miners' account of Hong Kong today conform to British ideas. There has never before been a description of the government structure of the Colony of such scope, even if it does overlook the homelier details to be found in Osgood: both Collins and Endacott arc completely superseded by it. Not only is the anatomy of the administration, from Letters Patent to regulations for local-government franchise, laid out here in full, but its physiology at work has been gone into with great profes- sional sophistication; one could wish that this example for colonial studies had been set long ago. It is in the physiology of the government that the importance of the "tripod of consents" can best be appreciated: public administration in Hong Kong, one can sec. is very definitely l'art du possible. Britain justifies colonial rule as a moral obligation to provide fair government for the Chinese people whe have taken refuge under the Union Jack; however genuine this highmindedness, Dr Miners shows that the low cost of defence to the UK has at the same time proved an excellent bargain for British enterprise. On the other hand, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's inability, as colonial master, to prevent diversification of the Colony's sterling balances in 1973 illustrated dramatically Hong Kong's fiscal and political independence under colonial rule. To a large extent, London accepts responsibility without power. But if London cannot boss the Governor, nor can the Governor boss Hong Kong: according to one Governor, Sir David Trench, laisser-faire (abas "minimum interference" - a combination of Confucian jen-i, "benevolent despotism", with Taoist wu-wei, "inaction") "is based on considered decisions, not mere paralysis of mind and will", nor does it entail insensitivity to the interests or opinions. of any section of the community, let alone exploitation by class or race. The Executive and Legislative Councils, the Urban Council and the hierarchy of rural councils, all enjoy limited regulatory or legislative powers, as well as powers of audit, over the paternalistic administration; yet, whether they are elective (by limited sufrage) or appointed, they exert enormous influence as pressure groups.
Dr Miners cites many cases, from the Hong Kong Hansard and other sources (not least telling, the memoirs of Sir Alexander Grantham), to illustrate occasionally the authoritarianism. more usually the flexibility, of both social legislation and administrative action in particular cases; emergence of unofficial pressure groups as well, far from being frowned on by the colonial rulers, is encouraged - unless naturally, they are prompted by interests external to Hong Kong, whether Chinese or British. Some political scientists might conclude that, in s practical effects, this system of government in Hong Kong does not diller that much from the public administration that goes with parliamentary democracy - only occasional general elections are missing; the justification for it is a rate of industrial development and financial growth under its regime which, despite a
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