1971-10-01 — Page 1

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL—1st October 1971. 1

THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL DEBATES

OFFICIAL REPORT

IN THE SESSION OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF HONG KONG WHICH OPENED 1ST OCTOBER 1971

IN THE

TWENTIETH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL CHAMBER

Friday, 1st October 1971

The Council met at half past Two o'clock

[MR PRESIDENT in the Chair]

PRESENT

HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR (PRESIDENT)

SIR DAVID CLIVE CROSBIE TRENCH, GCMG, MC

THE HONOURABLE THE COLONIAL SECRETARY

SIR HUGH SELBY NORMAN-WALKER, KCMG, OBE, JP

THE HONOURABLE THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

MR DENYS TUDOR EMIL ROBERTS, CBE, QC, JP

THE HONOURABLE THE SECRETARY FOR HOME AFFAIRS

MR DONALD COLLIN CUMYN LUDDINGTON, JP

THE HONOURABLE THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY

MR CHARLES PHILIP HADDON-CAVE, JP

THE HONOURABLE DAVID RICHARD WATSON ALEXANDER, MBE, JP DIRECTOR OF URBAN SERVICES

THE HONOURABLE JAMES JEAVONS ROBSON, JP

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS

THE HONOURABLE JOHN CANNING, JP

DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION

DR THE HONOURABLE GERALD RUGH CHOA, JP

DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES

THE HONOURABLE JACK CATER, MBE, JP

DIRECTOR OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

THE HONOURABLE DENIS CAMPBELL BRAY, JP

DISTRICT COMMISSIONER, NEW TERRITORIES

THE HONOURABLE PAUL TSUI KA-CHEUNG, OBE, JP

COMMISSIONER OF LABOUR

THE HONOURABLE IAN MACDONALD LIGHTBODY, JP

COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT

THE HONOURABLE KAN YUET-KEUNG, CBE, JP

THE HONOURABLE WOO PAK-CHUEN, OBE, JP

THE HONOURABLE SZETO WAI, OBE, JP

THE HONOURABLE WILFRED WONG SIEN-BING, OBE, JP

THE HONOURABLE ELLEN LI SHU-PUI, OBE, JP

THE HONOURABLE WILSON WANG TZE-SAM, OBE, JP

THE HONOURABLE HERBERT JOHN CHARLES BROWNE, JP

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL—1st October 1971. 2

THE HONOURABLE LEE QUO-WEI, OBE, JP

THE HONOURABLE GERALD MORDAUNT BROOME SALMON, JP THE HONOURABLE LO KWEE-SEONG, OBE, JP

ABSENT

DR THE HONOURABLE CHUNG SZE-YUEN, OBE, JP

THE HONOURABLE OSWALD VICTOR CHEUNG, QC, JP

THE HONOURABLE ANN TSE-KAI, OBE, JP

IN ATTENDANCE

THE CLERK OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

MR RODERICK JOHN FRAMPTON

Proclamation

Proclamation read pursuant to Standing Order No 6(1).

Governor's Speech

HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR: —Honourable Members of the Legislative Council, I welcome you to the opening meeting of this Session.

Since this is the last opening meeting at which I shall be addressing you, I am, I hope excusably, more inclined today to cast my mind back over the years than to attempt to forecast future policies which will shortly cease to be my responsibility. The Colonial Secretary will, I understand, be saying something about these later during the course of this opening meeting. In any case, a measure of stocktaking from time to time is perhaps no bad thing—as one day follows another, it is not easy to appreciate properly the progress we are making; but comparisons with a few years ago illuminate what in fact has been achieved with much greater clarity.

Physical change, of course, has been obvious and often dramatic. The opening of the Plover Cove reservoir has meant that, after four years without water rationing, we have almost forgotten the crisis of 1963-64, when a fleet of ocean-going tankers brought water from the Pearl River and water rationing was down to four hours' every fourth day. For this change, indeed, we have to thank the foresight of our predecessors. In 1964 Wah Fu Estate was only on the drawing board, Statue Square was a car park, the now conspicuous fly-overs had not appeared, and the Ocean Terminal was still under construction.

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But while the sky-line changes, basic policies do not. As a government we are naturally still, as always, deeply concerned to serve the best interests of the four million people for whom we are responsible. Our care is still, as always, to do everything possible to ensure that Hong Kong enjoys fruitful and harmonious relationships with her neighbours in the region, and to ensure that within Hong Kong there is peace and personal freedom under laws as sensible and unconstraining as may be.

Equally, we have always sought to sustain Hong Kong's economy at a level which will not only provide good employment opportunities and a rising standard of living, but which will also enable us to carry through progressively more advanced policies for the provision of community and social services. It is our aim, as it is the aim of any conscientious government, to do all that is possible to enable each family and each individual to look forward to a better and a fuller life. These are continuing and unchanging policies but cannot be done without a close and sensitive relationship between people and government, and this also we have steadily sought to promote.

In preparing this address, I cast around in my mind to see if I could not detect some trend in the events of the past decade or so; some characteristic feature; to which I might draw your attention and illustrate by example. I came to the conclusion that I could discern us approaching the end of one period in our affairs, and entering another different but equally challenging one. For many years, since the war, we have had to concern ourselves primarily with meeting needs of an urgent, basic nature: mass problems, which had to be met with massive solutions, and which left few resources available for anything else. I believe that we can now turn our attention increasingly to rather more specialized and personal problems, and pay more attention to individual rather than to mass needs. In short we are, I think and hope, coming out of an era of emergency action to ameliorate massive and immediate problems, and into an era in which we can hope to think in terms of refining and sophisticating over a wide field the quality of the various services we try to make available to the public.

We are also, I believe, reaching a situation, familiar already in many developing countries, in which increasing affluence and greater leisure, while both to be greatly welcomed in themselves, are nevertheless giving rise to their own fresh problems. Among those, of course, that spring immediately to mind are pollution, litter, and traffic congestion, as well as the greatly increased pressure which now falls on various community services. There are also the undesirable social consequences that flow from the misuse of affluence and leisure by some. It will require strenuous effort to deal with these and other problems, and the road ahead will not necessarily be any easier.

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[MR PRESIDENT]

Whilst our society has undoubtedly advanced in many ways, then, it is sad to have to refer so early in this address to one respect in which we have gone backwards. This is in the disturbing and continuously rising incidence of robberies and crimes committed against the person. During the first eight months of this year nearly 4,100 crimes involving violence have been reported. We are not, of course, the only sufferers, or indeed by any means the worst sufferers, from this phenomenon of the growth of violence; other urban areas are suffering as badly or worse; but it is a most disturbing state of affairs when we were previously so law abiding and when so much has been attempted to hold the increase in check.

In recent years we have made substantial progress towards spreading our courts throughout the Colony, and many new magistracies have been opened. We have a penal system as forward looking as exists almost anywhere else. Detection rates remain very high, and Police action to try to curb the offenders is energetic and efficient—but still the violence continues. This is not a suitable occasion on which to go into the problem at length, but I do most earnestly believe that we and others must make a fresh enquiry not only into appropriate additional countermeasures but also into basic causes: since I do not believe that we have identified these causes with any certainty at all.

But, apart from this quite recent and serious blot on our record, other forms of lawlessness have on the whole been well contained. I have special hopes of the new anti-bribery legislation which will, I trust, with public co-operation, help to reduce corruption. And may I repeat here that this is a tough measure reflecting a tough attitude to this evil. There can be no room for tolerance for, far less sympathy with, persons who for whatever reasons resort to corrupt ways whether as the giver or the receiver of bribes.

I would like to turn now to the state of our economy, on which of course wholly depends our ability to raise standards of living and improve community and social services. For fifteen years continuously we have experienced a high rate of economic growth, probably of the order of an average nine or ten per cent annually. In the ten years from 1961 to 1970, public revenue has grown by an average of 11 per cent annually, and this with only one significant rise in rates of taxation. Over the same period electricity consumption rose by an average of 13 per cent annually and bank deposits by 16 per cent. Our total external trade increased each year by about 10 per cent from 1961 to 1967; and by as much as an average of 20 per cent annually from 1968 to 1970. At the last count Hong Kong ranked 18th among the trading nations of the world. Domestic exports have grown since 1961 at the high average

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rate of nearly 16 per cent annually; and in 1970 their value totalled $12,350 million, so placing Hong Kong among the top ten trading countries in terms of exports per head of population.

Now these are of course very high rates of growth, and among the developing countries there are less than half a dozen whose growth rates have consistently matched ours in recent years. That we have achieved this degree of economic success is a tribute to the prodigious efforts made by the whole community; workers, managers, employers and Government alike. But it is a very high rate of growth, and we must not be too surprised if it now begins to prove difficult to maintain these rates in percentage terms: moreover if this should occur, we must always remember that reversion to more modest percentage growth rates, on an expanded base, would still mean a satisfactory degree of economic progress.

As our economy has become more complex so a whole new range of institutions has been set up to help co-ordinate and promote the process. Among them, I mention and I mention, in no particular order, such organizations as the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the Hong Kong Productivity Council, the Hong Kong Tourist Association, the Hong Kong Export Credit Insurance Corporation, the Hong Kong Management Association, the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, the Hong Kong Industrial Design Council, the Hong Kong Shippers' Council and the Hong Kong Packaging Council, while bodies with an older history, such as the Textile Advisory Board and the Trade and Industry Advisory Board have been adapted to meet changing circumstances. The effort that has gone into creating these various institutions is proving well worthwhile and they are now playing a major part in increasing both our competitiveness and the quality of our products.

The policy of deliberately leaving industry and commerce to reach their own business decisions as far as possible, while at the same time taking care to ensure that our fiscal and our other policies create a business climate which encourages confidence, investment, innovation and growth, has, in short, served us very well.

But it is vital to provide that physical infrastructure without which there can be no satisfactory economic expansion. Plover Cove is now a world famous engineering achievement and High Island in its turn will be no less. Together they will have added 110,000 million gallons to our storage capacity—a sevenfold increase—but the demand for water is, of course, rising rapidly. It was 100 million gallons a day in the summer of 1964 and grew to 190 million gallons a day this summer, making it necessary for us to experiment with large scale desalting plants against the day when our conventional water resources would have been fully exploited. In this context we are grateful for the continuing

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL—1st October 1971. 6

[MR PRESIDENT]

supply of water from China, which represents about 24 per cent of annual consumption.

The development of new industrial townships, particularly in northeast Kowloon and at Tsuen Wan/Kwai Chung has continued apace and in as well balanced a manner as could reasonably be expected, given the practical difficulties of keeping the provision of the various services needed precisely in step.

But our growth generally has also required a corresponding expansion by the privately owned public utilities. Since 1963 electrical generating capacity, for example, has tripled from 528 to 1,565 megawatts, while telephone services have quadrupled from 131,000 to 525,000 lines, and these are all achievements which reflect great credit on the companies concerned.

Again, in support of that most necessary physical infrastructure of which I spoke, we have greatly improved the handling of produce, freight and refuse. Two large mechanized abattoirs and a new wholesale vegetable market have replaced out-of-date facilities. Much of our refuse is now burnt in two giant incinerators, and more are planned. Double deck vehicular ferries have been introduced on cross-harbour services, and the cross-harbour tunnel is well on its way towards completion. It is only nine years since the new Kai Tak Airport was opened; already the runways is being extended and the capacity of the terminal building increased. An entirely new air cargo terminal is also to be built. The western harbour has been extended and moorings provided for some 20 additional ocean-going ships; and the fine new Ocean Terminal at Tsim Sha Tsui has been followed by the provision of container facilities at several wharves. Work is now progressing on a major three berth container terminal at Kwai Chung. Major improvements have started on the roads linking the main industrial areas with Kai Tak Airport and the new Kwai Chung container terminal; indeed, of the many physical changes of the past few years it is perhaps the new roads and the fly-overs which most immediately strike the eye.

But of all the changes we have witnessed over the years, the rising standard of living of ordinary people has been perhaps the most significant. This is a hard-working, skilful and adaptable community, and it is most certainly only right that all should share in the rewards of our prosperity. This our flexible economic system has been able to achieve.

A few figures easily illustrate what has happened. Our industrial working force has grown over the past seven years from 350,000 to

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over 600,000: and an extremely low level of unemployment generally has contributed to a rise of 90 per cent in average industrial wages since 1964. Meanwhile the cost of living indexes rose by only some 25 per cent. The standard of living as measured by real wages can therefore be said to have improved by something like 45 per cent over the last seven years. Of course this is an average figure only: some will have benefited less, and others more.

But our economic expansion has also provided a climate in which we have been able to improve working conditions. The past four years have seen a steady flow of labour legislation which has led, among other things, to a reduction in the number of disputes over non-payment of wages; to maternity protection for women, and to four rest days a month for most employees. The scope of the Workmen's Compensation Scheme has been extended and its rates of benefit enhanced. Standard hours of work for women and young persons in industry have been progressively reduced since 1967 to a maximum of 48 hours per week from the 1st of December this year. This Council will shortly, I hope, have before it legislation for the setting up of special courts to deal quickly with specific claims arising from employment disputes, and legislation also for the establishment of a modern system of craft and technician apprenticeship. All these are very considerable steps forward, but, like all legislation in this field, every step has to be taken most carefully to avoid unforeseen side-effects and, moreover, employers must do their part, as indeed many of course do, by introducing enlightened methods of personnel management.

Our economic prosperity has furthermore acted as the springboard which has enabled us to speed up the development of social services; particularly housing, education, health and welfare; to the point where public expenditure on these is now running at $1,180 million annually, compared with $314 million ten years ago.

By 1964 the Government housing programme was well in its stride, and over half a million people had been rehoused in seven-storey resettlement blocks built since the Shek Kip Mei fire of 1953. The design has been progressively improved since the elementary patterns of those days, and, in addition, in 1963 we went a step further by starting to build housing for low income families, other than those being cleared from squatter areas. Recently we took a big step forward in deciding that resettlement estates should henceforth be built to the higher standards already used for these Government low cost housing estates.

The Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society have moreover continued to build accommodation for families with incomes rather higher than those catered for by Government low cost housing.

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[MR PRESIDENT]

The situation now is that, in all, the number of people housed in resettlement estates, Government low cost housing estates, Housing Authority and Housing Society estates, has increased from 814,000 in 1964 to about 1,500,000 in round figures at the present time. We have been careful also to try to avoid inhibiting private development, which has itself made a very considerable contribution to meeting housing needs, particularly, of course, for the higher income groups.

But the hillside shacks are still with us, although the recent Census has shown that fewer squatters remain than had been thought, and their numbers will certainly decrease as development spreads. They will, however, I fear, continue to be with us for some time to come, but at least we have now come to the point of being able to decide to clear some of the worst areas, even though not required immediately for development.

Indeed I think housing is, perhaps, one of the fields in which I think we have most obviously come to a turn in our affairs of the kind I spoke about earlier. The days when the pressing need was for mass emergency accommodation, at almost any standard, are nearly over. We are starting to be able to pay more attention to the whole environment in the estates, and to plan new estates as more attractive self-contained entities with a wider range of facilities; while at the same time endeavouring to improve the older estates. It has already been decided to go ahead with a scheme to redevelop the oldest estate at Shek Kip Mei, and I have no doubt that this will be followed by other similar schemes.

Our final aim, I am convinced, must be to merge all our aided low-cost housing programmes into one co-ordinated programme, doing away with the distinction between resettlement and low-cost housing. There are grave practical difficulties in this so long as squatters have to be moved from land needed for development: but, nevertheless, it is an aim that I think we should always keep in view.

It is perhaps in the field of education amongst the social services that the most obvious progress has been made. Up to 1965, our main aim was merely to provide, in aided and private schools, a primary school place for every child. Subsequently we were able to amend our aim to providing an aided primary education to all children in the age group who sought it. This aim has recently been virtually achieved, and it has been accompanied by a progressive drop in primary school fees. Now we have amended our aims again, have abolished primary school fees in the generality of aided primary schools, are introducing a form of compulsory primary education, and have embarked on an ambitious programme to provide three years of aided secondary education for all children who seek it. Throughout, we have in addition

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL—1st October 1971. 9

aimed to provide a full five years of aided secondary education for an increasing number of our children; first, for up to 20 per cent of primary school leavers, and now for up to 20 per cent of all children in the appropriate age group. A great number of other children, of course, attend secondary schools in the private sector: indeed, 80% of children go on to some form of post-primary education.

To those who object that this is still less aid than can be offered to children in developed countries, I would like just to point out the dramatic disparity in the number of children here and in those countries. For example, whereas in the United Kingdom about 16.8 per cent of the population are children in the primary and secondary age group, here the figure is 28 per cent. The proportionately much greater task that faces us here in education has always to be borne in mind.

The raw figures are perhaps worth recording. In the last ten years primary school enrolment has risen from 450,000 to 761,000 and secondary school enrolment from 89,000 to 270,000; while the number of Form V candidates sitting the English and Chinese Certificates of Education Examinations has increased from 5,000 to 37,000 and this last figure is I think particularly significant, as it indicates that about 40 per cent of all children are now receiving a full five years of secondary education. All in all, 1971 will, I think, be seen as an important milestone in the history of education here in Hong Kong.

With these advances in basic education comes, of course, the need to improve the quality of teaching generally, something which I am sure the new Educational Television Service will help to do. We also need to expand our special education facilities for the handicapped, and plans have been drawn up to this end; though I would add that our existing facilities are much better than frequently represented. In the field of vocational education it has been decided to proceed initially with the construction of two further technical institutes as soon as possible, to augment the existing one at Morrison Hill, subject of course to this Council approving the necessary expenditure. Sites for two more technical institutes are earmarked, but are not immediately available. In this area, also, the first Board of Governors of the new Hong Kong Polytechnic should shortly be able to start making this important institution take real shape.

A development of importance to the Universities has been the setting up of a University Grants Committee. Both Universities are expanding steadily, and should reach their combined planning target of 6,000 students by 1973-74. In the ten years, 1964-1974, therefore, starting from a figure of 3,500 students, the expansion will have been of the order of 71 per cent.

Turning now to public health, I wonder if it is fully appreciated how remarkable our record has been since the war. In circumstances

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[MR PRESIDENT]

such that epidemic disease on a large scale could very well have been expected, we have, due to the skill and the care displayed by our medical and health services, almost entirely avoided them. Our infant mortality rate has fallen from 32.9 to 19.6 per 1,000 live births over the past eight years and is now almost as low as Britain's. The fall in the maternal mortality rate has been no less striking. The number of deaths from tuberculosis has fallen dramatically; nowadays, tuberculosis in the young is uncommon, and rare in infants. Nevertheless, as more communicable diseases are brought under control, the incidence of other, previously masked, illnesses is brought into more prominence, and the battle for good health is never ending one.

The planned expansion of hospitals and clinics has proceeded steadily, the total number of beds available increasing from 10,000 in 1962 to over 16,000 at the present time, with a further 3,500 beds in the immediate pipe line. Of these, 1,500 beds are for the mentally disabled, illustrating once again how it has now become possible to turn our attention increasingly to more specialized areas of need.

Drug addiction, alas, remains a serious problem as it has done for so many years. We are, however, in process of expanding our treatment facilities very considerably both at Shek Kwu Chau and by the provision of two more institutions similar to that at Tai Lam. The first, at Tong Fuk, should be in operation within a few months. It is a sad thing to mention with apparent pride, but I believe that in the treatment of drug addiction we can probably claim to be the world's leaders. But I do not believe we shall be able really to beat this problem so long as the production of opium continues.

In the welfare field the most significant development has undoubtedly been the introduction, earlier this year, of the new public assistance scheme by the Social Welfare Department. The need for an upward revision of the scales of assistance is now being examined, and I hope it will be possible to reach a decision to put to this Council on this matter shortly. But in many other areas, more than is generally recognized and too many for me to mention, new welfare services have come into being or older methods have been improved.

One of the big changes of recent years, arising from improved living standards, has been the growth of leisure, and the consequent need to speed up the provision of more facilities for recreation. The number of public playgrounds and recreation facilities has doubled in six years, and an ambitious programme for the provision of district swimming complexes is well under way. The concern we now feel over providing leisure-time activities is indeed a very real measure of the progress this community has made.

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Increased leisure has also enabled many city people to get out into the New Territories to the hills and islands where solitude and natural beauty can still be found. The countryside and its people may be new to many town dwellers but they are old in the history of Hong Kong and are a part of the fabric of our community. The new satellite towns at Tsuen Wan, Castle Peak and Sha Tin are on the move and Tsuen Wan alone is now a town of a quarter of a million people. Rapid growth is also to be seen in the market towns of Yuen Long, Tai Po, Shek Wu Hui and Luen Wo Hui where tall modem buildings are now to be found. In the press of events in post war years, the development of many other smaller towns and villages has not, perhaps, progressed so well, and in many areas we have pollution problems, but I hope that we can now spare resources to bring improved public services to more rural communities both new and old so that they become better places to live in.

As regards the future of the Urban Council I do not propose to say anything in detail today. However, certain conclusions have been reached on the future composition and financial arrangements of the Urban Council, and Government will be publishing a statement on these in the form of a White Paper to be tabled in this Council within the next two weeks.

A constitution such as ours, depending as it inevitably must on consensus rather than party political views, has, as a matter of plain commonsense, to be as sensitive as possible to the state of public opinion. Of course, being sensitive to public opinion does not always necessarily mean following it—any responsible Government must sometimes, in the broader public interest, decline to follow courses which are popularly advocated. But it has always been our aim to be fully aware of opinion, and to open up useful channels for exchanges of opinion.

Honourable Members, I know, attach importance to this aim also, and this is reflected by the manner in which the UMELCO Office is developing. A unique organization has been set up here for the investigation of public sources of complaint, as well as the handling of representations on matters of general public concern, and I should like to record my own view that the UMELCO Office, as now organized, is not only providings a most useful service in this manner but is providing a valuable means of keeping in touch with public opinion in addition to those channels which were previously available. It is certainly contributing constructively to the formulation of many facets of Government policy.

Another recent innovation partly in pursuit of the same aims has been the introduction of the urban District Officer system. The City District Officers are now handling something like one million individual cases and enquiries a year and, although the scheme is still young, and

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[MR PRESIDENT]

will no doubt develop to meet changing needs, I am sure that it will be viewed increasingly as a valuable contribution to better government, both as a channel for opinion and advice and as a co-ordinating mechanism in the City districts.

Contributing also to the improved flow of information between Government and the people has been the extension of our Information Services into individual departments of Government. Furthermore, in matters of public communication we have demonstrated our determination to reduce the difficulties arising from barriers of language by the setting up of the Chinese Language Committee, whose reports are now under close study.

I am sure all honourable Members would wish to join with me in paying tribute to the loyalty and devotion to duty displayed by the public service both in times of emergency, such as in the recent typhoon "Rose" which caused so much distressing loss of life, and in the more mundane day-to-day task of providing sustained and efficient services to the community. I, personally, would like to take this opportunity of thanking them all very sincerely for all the help and support I have received here from my colleagues in the service during my years here. A Government can only be as good as its public service, and that so much has been achieved over the years is a clear indication of just how good a public service we have here in Hong Kong.

Of course, if a public service is to command the respect of the community it is most necessary that every civil servant understands clearly the extent to which the onus rests on him personally to serve the public patiently and to the very best of his ability.

It is my firm belief that a new tradition of courtesy and understanding towards the public is now taking root in the public service and I am sure that, with further encouragement, this more modem attitude will continue to grow. I hope the public too will respond by showing increasing understanding and awareness of the difficult position in which public servants often find themselves when seeking to do their duty.

But apart from the public service, there are many individuals and organizations to whom I would have liked to pay a tribute had there been time. There are so many who participate with Government in the task of providing the multiplicity of services required for our four million people, that I cannot mention them all. I should however like particularly to pay a tribute to the Urban Council and Urban Councillors, past and present, for their work both in Council and in the Ward Offices since these were established in 1965. I am also most grateful to the Kaifong Associations, the Tung Wah Hospital, the Po Leung Kuk, the churches and all our volunteer and auxiliary emergency

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services and very many other similar community organizations. I should, further, like to express my appreciation to the Heung Yee Kuk and the Rural Committees for the part they have played in providing Government with advice and support.

The achievements that I have referred to this afternoon are the achievements of us all and, while acknowledging that much will always remain to be done, we can take pride in the progress we have made in recent years. Our businessmen and our students have achieved success wherever they go; and the tenacity with which we have tackled so many problems has earned us much admiration. The fact is that Hong Kong has now fully arrived on the international scene, and is now more widely known and better understood than ever before. We are now a city and territory of some very considerable stature in the world's eyes, and are respected as such—paradoxically enough, one sign of this is perhaps the overtones of envy which is sometimes apparent in outside commentaries on us. But, in general, Hong Kong is also remarkable for its continuing capacity to impress and make a friend of nearly everyone who visits here and who learns a little about us. We ourselves, on the other hand, are by no means an un-self critical community: indeed I sometimes think we show a tendency to denigrate ourselves rather too much; but criticism shows concern, and concern is precisely what makes a community lively and vigorous.

All that we do as a Government we have done, and are now doing, is for one purpose only: to provide a better life for all who live here and to create expanding opportunities and better services for our growing population. The progress that we have been making is there for all to see, and our people, especially the younger generation, are now enjoying a whole range of opportunities that simply did not exist ten years ago. We have now the resources to sustain this progress: we also have the will. I am therefore confident that Hong Kong can, in the years ahead, continue to succeed in the task of providing an ever more satisfying life for our people.

An now, honourable Members, may I wish you every success in your deliberations during this and all future sessions.

Address of thanks to His Excellency the Governor

THE COLONIAL SECRETARY (SIR HUGH NORMAN-WALKER): —Sir, I beg to move that an address be presented to His Excellency the Governor as follows: —

"We, the Hong Kong Legislative Council here assembled, beg leave to offer thanks for the speech which has been addressed by you to the Council."

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Motion made (pursuant to Standing Order No 30). That the debate on the motion be adjourned—THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (MR D. T. E. ROBERTS).

Question put and agreed to.

Adjournment and next sitting

HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT: —In accordance with Standing Orders I now adjourn Council until 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday the 6th of October.

Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes past three o'clock.

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