TNAG-0850-FCO40-1060-Future-of-Hong-Kong-New-Territories-leases-1979 — Page 24

HK future geven.

Good afternnon everybody, this is the Agitator speaking. My name is Walter Easey and I am introducing myself since I am also chairing this seminar. For six year between 1962 and 1968 I was a police inspector in Hong Kong and since then I have been trying to reform myself away from my previous criminal ways and become an honest citizen. My chosen form of therapy has been involvement in various groups that have tried to raise the issue of Hong Kong within the British working-class movement. I am the secretary of the Hong Kong Research Project in London, where, amongst other activities, we dig out dirt, ask embarrassing questions and generally treat official sources with suspicion and disbelief.

We established this morning that the failure to solve the Lease Problem is threatening Hong Kong's existence within the next few years. The Lease Problem arises out of the Second Convention of Peking 1898 and I will start by spending a few minutes setting out the attitudes of the two main parties to this Treaty.

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