brave words can be cheap, and that high moral sentiments are
usually sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
their fear has been realised.
Many Hong Kong people, rightly or wrongly, feel
feel that
Rightly or wrongly, they nurse a
Having suffered the ignominy of
sense of grievance and betrayal.
watching their future determined in 1984 without reference to
their views, they are now experiencing a sense of deja vu in
perceiving, rightly or wrongly, a failure or threatened failure
by Britain to honour her remaining obligation to establish a
democratic and representative government in Hong Kong well before
1997.
If Britain is to live up to her extant obligations to a
subject people in the remaining years that Hong Kong stays
British sovereign territory, and if Parliament is to preserve untarnished her image as the historical font of modern democracy
which is supposed to set a shining example to the less
enlightened, let not Parliament aid and abet the British
Government in retaining the shackles over her disenfranchised
subjects in Hong Kong. The accepted principle that a democratic
and representative government should be firmly established
Hong Kong in the run-up to 1997 must be upheld if Britain desires
an honourable withdrawal from one of the last of her remaining
Colonies.
in
MARTIN LEE Q.C.
Legislative Councillor
Member, Basic Law Drafting Committee
DANIEL R. FUNG
Barrister-at-law
Member, Basic Law Conkaltative Committee
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