course, think about The Little Man; it can't think about little men." This is not to decry what individual officers could, and usually did, do for personal complainants in specific cases.
Sir David Trench had his own ideas; thoughts from on high are less easily smothered than unsolicited disturbances from below. The received wisdom, which equally impressed most of the interlopers, was that since most of the population might want to return home across the border at some time, the electoral roll would be far too fluid to embrace a stable, identifiable and representable society; and that in any event direct elections to Legislative Council (Legco) were unthinkable, because they would be hi-jacked by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Kuomintang (KMT) from Taiwan; the fundamental Chinese political battle would then be fought out in the streets and on any hustings of Hong Kong, which the Chinese People's Republic (CPR) would never be willing to stand idly by and watch being conceivably won by Hong Kong Chinese Nationalist sympathisers. However Trench recognised that Legco was not the only possible forum for expression of popular feeling.
Trench had no problems with sharing some of the lifestyle of the taipans and Chinese millionaires who were so noticeable among those traditionally appointed by governors to Exco and Legco, and whose nature he did little to change; despite the familiar jibe that he ranked third, after the taipan of the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Chairman of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, all knew that in the last resort he recommended the names of Executive Councillors to the Secretary of State. In his earlier days, however, he had preferred the raffish and disrespectful ambience of the multi-racial Foreign Correspondents' Club to that of the Hong Kong Club, Fanling [the Governor's official residence in the New Territories Hon. Editor] and the Jockey Club; while he enjoyed the actual sports of golf and racing for their own sakes; he never lost touch with his humbler post-war acquaintances in the Chinese community, such as his language teacher. He insisted that the introductory review chapter of one year's colonial annual report should spell out the wide sweep and valued authority of the great number of statutory, non-statutory and ad hoc committees which he believed to be a valid response to critics who would not understand why the people had no democratically elected voice in his councils. Yet his broad sympathies told him that, even so,
5
course, think about The Little Man; it can't think about little men." This is not to decry what individual officers could, and usually did, do for personal complainants in specific cases.
Sir David Trench had his own ideas; thoughts from on high are less easily smothered than unsolicited disturbances from below. The received wisdom, which equally impressed most of the interlopers, was that since most of the population might want to return home across the border at some time, the electoral roll would be far too fluid to embrace a stable, identifiable and representable society; and that in any event direct elections to Legislative Council (Legco) were unthinkable, because they would be hi-jacked by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Kuomintang (KMT) from Taiwan; the fundamental Chinese political battle would then be fought out in the streets and on any hustings of Hong Kong, which the Chinese People's Republic (CPR) would never be willing to stand idly by and watch being conceivably won by Hong Kong Chinese Nationalist sympathisers. However Trench recognised that Legco was not the only possible forum for expression of popular feeling.
Trench had no problems with sharing some of the lifestyle of the taipans and Chinese millionaires who were so noticeable among those traditionally appointed by governors to Exco and Legco, and whose nature he did little to change; despite the familiar jibe that he ranked third, after the taipan of the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Chairman of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, all knew that in the last resort he recommended the names of Executive Councillors to the Secretary of State. In his earlier days, however, he had preferred the raffish and disrespectful ambience of the multi-racial Foreign Correspondents' Club to that of the Hong Kong Club, Fanling [the Governor's official residence in the New Territories Hon. Editor] and the Jockey Club; while he enjoyed the actual sports of golf and racing for their own sakes; he never lost touch with his humbler post- war acquaintances in the Chinese community, such as his language teacher. He insisted that the introductory review chapter of one year's colonial annual report should spell out the wide sweep and valued authority of the great number of statutory, non-statutory and ad hoc committees which he believed to be a valid response to critics who would not understand why the people had no democratically elected voice in his councils. Yet his broad sympathies told him that, even so,
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