responsibility, a position of, trust.
Chairman: As a point of fact, before we move on, is
it right that the British Government refused consultation in 1992, as you say?
Sir Percy Cradock:
Yes, yes.
Chairman: Although have not Ministers said that they
did offer consultation?
Sir Percy Cradock: I am quoting from a text, from a passage of my book, Mr Chairman, which was gone through with painful care with the Foreign Office before it was cleared, and last night I checked my words because I thought this might raise an eyebrow when I said it. It is historically correct. We gave them the broad outline of the
the Governor's speech; they said 'Please could we consult with you before you go public?', we said 'No, we cannot'.
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Mr David Sumberg: Sir Percy, I want to come back to what Sir John Stanley referred to, rightly in my view, as the central issue, and that
that is
is the people of Hong Kong 'our clients' as you called them. It seems to me, and seemed to me when I was in Hong Kong, that the somewhat disparaging view is sometimes taken of what is Hong Kong opinion. In other words, the view is expressed 'Oh, these people are really not interested in democracy; they are not interested in the Rule of Law; all they are interested in. is business and commerce'.
Now I do not personally agree with that view, because I think they have lived in a benign society where the Rule of Law has been paramount. We spoke to many people, but I was impressed by the fact that the people who are directly elected, I think almost exclusively, were in favour Of a greater degree of democracy. Indeed some of them were critical of the Governor for not pushing it hard enough. I was impressed too with the fact that every public opinion poll was taken; we can all quarrel with public opinion polls, and we can all argue about the terms in which they were put, but they did reflect a view in Hong Kong which was supportive of what the Governor was trying to do,
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