TNAG-0650-FCO40-798-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H.-A.-Tu-1977 — Page 131

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b) The 1974 recession clearly had rather traumatic

but

fortunately brief--effects in Hong Kong. But it is not necessarily a

unique event; the world economic outlook is increasingly uncertain, and the

economy of Hong Kong is (as I noted in my introduction) unbalanced and vulner

able. A sharper and more enduring recession than that of 1974 might very

well, in view of the apparent preoccupation of Hong Kong employees with

security, set off a spontaneous or alternative radical labour and political

movement, which would be quite capable of producing an autonomous

industrial and political crisis. Despite their superficial

conventionality,

one can see, for instance, considerable potential for a local version

of the French events of 1968 among Hong Kong students and workers.

c) I could not claim, in the brief period allocated so far to

this study, to have examined (or even had access to) all the evidence.

But some familiarity with a variety of developing countries leaves me with

a distinct impression--despite the Chinese dislike of ostentatious consumption

as

a normality--that an industrial economy like Hong Kong is highly

vulnerable to international criticism of its contrast of poverty with

overweening wealth. I am not convinced that its workers have shared

appropriately in its prosperity.

d) Even a brief expert acquaintance with Hong Kong suggests

there are things--like the planned raising of the school leaving-age or

introduction of paid annual holidays--where movement is ponderously slow

compared with the alacrity of Hong Kong's "establishment" when a potential

for profit is concerned.

e) Despite, again, its apparent bustle and efficiency, there

are pockets of inefficiency in Hong Kong industry and commerce which

survive only from their access to cheap, immobile labour--and can continue

to do so even while new industries are suffering from labour shortage.