URBAN
COUNCIL
作趁肪
5. At the same time as the Government was setting up these pro- Government monitoring bodies, it was pulling down the only partially democratic public body in existence, the Urabn Council. The Govern- ment granted financial autonomy to the Urban Council in 1973, but in the same year removed the Council's most important work, housing, from its jurisdiction. The Government also withdrew the officials, whose inefficiencies at least drew some slight opposition from the appointed members of the Council. With the withdrawal of officials, the appointed members gained what they had sought, namely, political control over the Council, and since 1973 they have become the voice of Government policy on all major issues; they have adopted an even more undemocratic stance than the officials they replaced.
6. The Government has further eroded. the democratic element in the Urban Council by appointing two of its elected members to the Legislative Council. This means that the pro-Government element is now 14 members, while those responsible only to the voters are reduced to ten, those ten being divide into two main political parties, one pro-Goverment, and the other ineffective. The remaining members on the elected side are independents, and it is they who are now becoming the voice for change. To this group the undersigned belong.
7.
Constitutional changes are long overdue. A colonial set-up may have been good enough in pre-war days, though even that is somewhat denied by history; it may have been good enough in the early years after the war when the vast majority of Hong Kong's population were newcomers to Hong Kong. But the system is certainly not good enough today, when the young people born in Hong Kong have begun to question why their compatriots can be unfairly treated and do not even have the right of appeal or representation of any kind.
*
8. The Hong Kong Government has long rejected any plea for constitu- tional reform, using the cliche that Hong Kong's geo-political position makes changes unacceptable, and that "China wouldn't like it", whatever that may mean. This lie has been repeated so often that it is now widely believed. Every visiting Member of Parliament repeats the cliché with the air of superior knowledge, but it obviously comes from his brief on reaching Hong Kong, or before he leaves London.
9.
What truth is there in this cliché that "China wouldn't like it" if there were changes here? The British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs gave the lie to this Hong Kong Government propaganda when questioned on May 9th. 1977 by Labour M.P. Mr. Frank Hooley (Sheffield).
Cont./ Mr. Hooley
市政局,香港愛丁堡廣塲
Urban Council Chambers, Edinburgh Place, Hongkong
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.