CONFIDENTIAL
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year. A number of important bills, including the Companies Bill and Insurance Bill will become law during this session of the Legislative Council.
14.
It is issues such as these which are the bread and butter of the work of the Hong Kong Government. They will need to be dealt with in the face of an increasingly articulate population and well organised pressure groups who are learning fast how to use. the media to promote their cause. Although Hong Kong's professional classes recognise what has been achieved and do not seek fundamental change, they will not remain satisfied with the governmental system as it is today. Changes will have to be made to give them a greater sense of participation and more visible role in government : and yet change will have to come in a way consonant with the stability which has underlain the success of Hong Kong and with the need not to provoke Peking into interfering with the process. Public utility tariffs, public transport fares, the need for changes in the education system and additional indirect taxes are all grist to the mill of pressure groups some of whom now have representatives in the Urban Council. Even the Chinese government's plans to build a nuclear power station about 70 miles from Hong Kong will have to be carefully handled if we are to counter fears about the polution of the environment and charges that we are serving the Chinese interest rather than our own.
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CONFIDENTIAL
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