TNAG-1727-FCO40-2440-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 196

DRAFT SPEECH BY HON KC CHAN, OBE, JP

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

16.3.1988

Motion Debate on the White Paper:

The Development of Representative Government:

The Way Forward

Mr. tuan Kim -shuin i

Sir,

The direction of the White Paper has to be viewed from different stand points of the various interest groups. Some consider it is the way forward if they gain from it; those in status quo consider it a side-way move with members honoured'

honoured and

dishonoured" according to requirement; yet others consider it the way backward if they lose out in the change.

Whilst those casualties of urban councillors in the hastily prepared district board election are perhaps groaning with frustration, those who are completely not mentioned in the White

Paper are enjoying the status quo may laugh first and laugh the

loudest.

Sarangham

uomay

Yet there are those bargain hunters, which in the

•

picturesque way of expression in Cantonese dialect, performed the

跳

草裾

"grass skirt dance" ( Et th

) with the jingling of

medals which they really do not want to depart with, otherwise they

would have used the efficient postal service to return them ka what the British army officers did some years ago.

tha

All these may be interesting details, but what is of paramount importance is paragraph 32, in which the majority is turned into the minority, ie, one signature campaign without

mentioning the number of signatories and the number of persons who could not understand the woolly questions in the survey. I quote from the Confucian Analects the time-tested principle

ETI, if the people have no faith in their

rulers, there is no standing for the state.

(1)