TNAG-1286-FCO40-16372-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong.-Part-2-of-2-1984 — Page 94

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college, some by the functional constituencies, while the number of Unofficial

members appointed by the Governor will be reduced from 29 to 23. This

direction of development will sustain.

1 agree to the general direction towards a more representative

government, but as for the pace and speed proposed in the Green Paper, I have

the following remarks to make - The Green Paper has laid down the composition

of the Legislative and the Executive Councils in 1985, 1988 and 1991 which is

а gradually progressive time schedule aimed at reducing the number of appointed

Councillors gradually while increasing the number of members elected by the

electoral college and the functional constituencies progressively.

Whether

the speed of implementation proposed in the Green Paper is too slow, moderate

or too fast is still unknown. I think the experiment of the coming 3 years

can afford sufficient evidence for judging whether the speed of change is

suitable and we can make more appropriate arrangements for the development after

1928. Therefore, I suggest that Government should bring forward from 1989 to

1987 the conduct of a full scale review of the representative government.

1987 is the ideal year as after the 1985 election to District Board and the

1986 election to the Urban Council and the Regional Council, the people of

Hong Kong will have more experience as well as a better understanding of the

operations of the electoral system. Thus the 1987 review will suffice for

determining precisely the development speed for the composition of the

Legislative Council in 1988 and the future organization of the Executive Council.

I feel that, from now until 1987, the government should develop

towards two major aspects: firstly, for the representative system to be

introduced successfully and realistically, active participation by the people

on their own initiative would be most important. At present, politics is

/P. 3