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The paper also quoted a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, Dr. Victor Sit, s criticising the Green Paper for failing to draw up a clear scope of work of both elected and appointed councillors on district boards.
The Vice-Chairman of the Urban Council, Mr. Hilton Cheong-leen, told a luncheon meeting on June 20 that the council's status would "take a fall" if proposals in the Green Paper were put into practice without amendments, according to the Chinese papers and two English papers the following day.
On the franchise issue, he suggested that voters should be at least 25 years old with no less than seven years' residence in Hong Kong.
Mr. Ma Man-fai of the United Nations Association was quoted by a few Chinese papers as saying on June 22 that although reforms proposed in the Green Paper were progressive, they were intended to weaken the powers of certa influential Urban Councillors rather than to allow for more democracy.
In an article on June 25, the Centre Daily News felt that public pressure might be one reason for the Government's initiative in proposing district administrative reforms in the hope of securing support from the population.
The paper thought that a recent speech by the Guangdong Governor, Mr. Xi Zhongxun, in which he described Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as special zones of China, might also have prompted the release of the Green Paper to clearly set out the New Territories' position as a district of the Hong Kong Central Government.
Commenting on the Green Paper, a former chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk, Mr. Chan Yat-sun, stressed that the status of the Kuk should be strengthened, according to Sing Tao Jih Pao on the same day. Mr. Chan added that residents of the eight districts, from which the Urban Council drew its funds, should be represented on the council.
The Director of Home Affairs, Mr. John Walden, was quoted by both Chinese and English papers as saying on June 26 that there was a growing realisation in the higher levels of the Government that greater weight must be given to public opinion if government by consultation was to be meaningful to people invited to participate in it and for it to be creditable to the general public.
Speaking on the Green Paper at the sixth inauguration ceremony of the Kwun Tong Sports Association, Mr. Walden said there was no reason to assume that a different attitude would be taken towards the views of unofficial members on the district boards.
At a meeting to discuss the Green Paper on June 26, the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee suggested that a third of the members on district boards in the New Territories should be elected and that rural committee chairmen and vice-chairmen should be ex-officio members on the boards.
On the extension of adult suffrage, the committee said voters should have at least seven years' residence in Hong Kong.
In an exclusive report on June 29, the South China Morning Post said there was an opinion split among Unofficials of the Legislative Council over the implications and desirability of certain proposals in the Green Paper.
According to the paper, some said elections on a constituency basis and adult suffrage would create ill-informed pressure groups in the proposed district boards and within an expanded Urban Council as well.
The other party said that as the proposals posed no real consequences, they should be given a try, when the proposed adult suffrage, for example, would go some way to meet pressure for more democracy generated locally and in Whitehall.
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