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and I wouldn't like to waste your time in giving you an account of
what you fully well know, so please start with your questions.
Yes?
QUESTION:
(by ?) I would just like to know
now that you have toured through all these camps, what are the conditions and whether the conditions of the camps here in Hong
Kong as compared to elsewhere.
MR HOCKE:
Well, first I never like to really embark into comparison, not for political reasons or other ones, but one has to recognise that the condition in every country are to a large extent different from another one and that whenever we suggest to authority some improvement or adjustment it is not based on what is going on in other parts of the world but we view it against the local background, taking into account the culture and the environment and what the needs of the people are. So that, sorry to say, I have no specific answer to your question.
QUESTION:
(by ?)
Yes?
Mr Hocke, what did you think
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about the conditions at the closed camps? I understand you have been to Bowring. Were you satisfied with the conditions?
MR HOCKE:
Here as a general statement and hoping not to contradict myself, I have to confess that the more I am going through camps, the less I get accustomed to them and that wherever you get I think it always painful to look at people who have been forced, elected to leave their homes, very often became separate from their families, to live for quite some time, be it in a closed camp or an open camp, hoping for a better future and being more or less confined to be assisted and finding it very difficult to take care of themselves. So what I have seen this morning is exactly along the same line. It is a difficult human problem yet it is true to say also that here in Hong Kong, like in many other countries, a lot has been done in welcoming these people, in trying to accommodate as best can be done given the local circumstances, but basically, and I would like
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