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uncover grievances requires that numerous and different channels of complaint to be opened to the public, and we have a very intelligent and hard-working public in Hong Kong. People will be temperamentally willing to use one channel where they might not be willing to use another. Convenience is an obvious factor and the nature of complaint will make some channels more obviously appropriate than others. Even an ombudsman, when we get one, therefore, would have to be considered as one extra channel, not as a centralizing channel which would make other channels unnecessary. Our aim, however ambitious it might sound, is to make every City District Officer have some co-ordinating functions between departments, and gain a reputation as a sympathetic person to whom complaints can be made, and one who will not be too easily satisfied with the answers received from Departments. Some people will go to him, some to the Ward Offices. If this is what the supporters of this motion have at the back of their minds then the matter is not one for Government policy directions but for ordinary common sense. I have no hesitation in giving an assurance here and now that District Officers will co-operate in this sort of way with the Ward System of this Council. I think I know the Ward Members well enough—in fact I have just received some assurance just now—to be able to anticipate that on their parts there will be no lack of response to this assurance, and that their own co-operation with the District Officers will be forthcoming. In view of this assurance there seems to be no need for this Motion as I understand it, and I shall therefore abstain from voting, as my friend Mr. Li is doing.

CHAIRMAN:---Ladies and gentlemen, I hesitate to prolong this debate, but my speech is very short, and even if I am repeating what I have already said I will give it for the record. I think that the main point I wish to make is that the City District Officers are political officers and not ombudsmen, and that they are the counterparts of the New Territories District Officers, although at first they will have few executive functions. They are thus a localized manifestation of the central Government. Of course, opportunities for discussion and co-operation between Ward Members and City District Officers will present themselves. When this happens, the City District Officers will do all they can with the object of helping anyone who has the good of their district at heart. I was glad to hear Mr. BERNACCHI's assurance that Councillors will equally work with the City District Officers. Co-operation, as the Secretary for Chinese Affairs has said, does not require a Government policy directive. I shall, therefore, follow Mr. LI Yiu-bor and Mr. Paul Tsui, in abstaining from voting on the Motion.

MR. HU:-Mr. Chairman, first of all I should satisfy Mr. SALES that Mr. John BLAKER is an appointed member, and second I would say that although Mr. Paul TSUI give this assurance—I welcome this assurance but certainly in such an important matter at the moment,

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it would be advisable that Government should declare this as its policy. It is not inadvisable under the circumstances that it will encourage the future course that the urban District Officer would take, because I know that the counterpart of the Urban District Officers, that is to say the District Officer of the New Territories, have no such ward Members sitting side by side with them. This is a new set of circumstances, in my submission, Mr. Chairman. A new direction probably will be advisable and in any case, Mr. Chairman, this new direction from the Government will do no harm in any circumstances. If we support the Urban District Officer system, why do we not approve this principle, which, even from every member speaking on this occasion, nobody really would object to that and I therefore, I think that if the member would approve this idea I hope they could vote for this Motion. Mr. Chairman, this is what I would like to reply—and I think Mr. Paul TSUI, the Acting Secretary for Chinese Affairs, said that the City District Officers would co-operate with Urban Councillors if they were allowed to—I would like this point to be clarified to be allowed by whom?

MR. BLAKER:-Mr. Chairman, might I say on a point of clarification, Mr. Hu has very kindly attributed to me the germ of this idea—I must admit that I am. I take credit for, or I am to blame for, passing on this germ, but I do not feel that the disease originated entirely with me alone. (Laughter).

MR. HU:-In reply to Mr. John BLAKER—it is not disease, it is a good idea I should think, so it is credit which he should take.

The question was put.

The Motion was carried with 11 votes for none against and 13 abstentions.

FAREWELL TO MESSRS. G. M. TINGLE, WILFRED

S. B. WONG AND DANIEL S. H. LAM

CHAIRMAN: -Before we close I have one further item. It is with regret that I must inform Members that both Mr. Wilfred WONG and Mr. Daniel LAM will be retiring from this Council at the end of the month.

Mr. WONG has been a member of this Council since April 1960. During his eight years with the Council he has served on many of our Select Committees, and has earned our highest regard for the sound judgment, steadiness and strength of his views, which he expresses with touching gentleness and diffidence. He has served this Council with distinction. His leaving us does not mean, of course, that he will cease to continue to devote some of his valuable time to other important fields of the Hong Kong community's administration and interests.

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