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INDEX
VISIT 10 HONG KONG : MISCELLANEOUS POINTS
Greater Deшocracy
SY PO. 51
1978
PREGIOTRY
Action Teken
Mh. 25.25 v g
1. I learnt from David Wilson that the Governor has given instructions to senior officers in the Hong Kong Government to look for candidates from outside the normal establishment for some of the second tier Government Committees. The objective is to bring on candidates who could eventually take their place on LeeCo. While this is a worthwhile scheme, and I an convinced that it is being done with reasonable enthusiasm, it will obviously take some years to show any striking results.
2.
A number of people to whom i spoke were extremely scorr.ful of the value of UrnCo. Only one, however, Peter[ Johnson, came up with any concrete suggestion as to ways in which Urbco e uld be t
he proposed that voting should be by constituency which would hopefully lead to a preater feeling of Community sirit and therefore a greater degree of public interest and involvement.
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Organisation or cover, ent
elective.
3. When talling 10 mgll Artiley I trice, without much success, to make clear in my own mind the formal structure of the Cove?nent Lachinery. one point did become clear, however, ani that is that there are those in the liong Kong Covernment who would prefer that when we write on matters of policy, if the letter is addressed to the Lecretariat branch, a copy should be sent to the relevant department or vice-versa.
The Budget
4.
Following so soon on the heels of Lichael Stewart, I made no raal effort to discuss financial or economic affairs. However, during the conversation with liugh Ardley he put across very strongly the joint that, when the budget is being drawn up, Finance Branch follow the individual budgets laid down by departments for those new areas of expenditure which have already been accepted as Government policy. It is only on policies which may be desirable but have not been either considered essential or yet formally taken into the Government programme that the Financial Secretary exercises any real,control.
Future of llong Kong
5. I was very struck by how many people, both in and out of Covernment, were eager to discuss this question. No-one pretended to come up with any real solution as what will happen after 1997 but there was an obvious awareness that something will have to be arranged within the next 5 years, the deadline was given me by a number of people. In their
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