HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
traditional background, they can only consider themselves as Hong Kong Chinese, and yet as such, there is a psychological yearning for them to be identified with Hong Kong as their home or "native place”.
In this vital area of community life, there is a serious gap in administrative policy. The United Kingdom Government and our senior expatriate civil servants who control the policies of the Hong Kong administration, cannot yet fully appreciate what is at stake since for most of them Hong Kong is not their permanent home and when they retire they will settle down in places other than Hong Kong.
In order to give the local people the opportunity to feel and believe that the local government is their government, and not just a colonial administration, it is fundamentally necessary that urgent steps be taken to change the Urban Council into a City Council with wider powers and responsibilities. As a start, the Urban Council can be given a proportion of the rates to be used for building more schools, clinics, nurseries and kindergartens in the resettlement estates and urban areas, and to take over and expand the present restricted scope of the Social Welfare Department. When the Urban Council's scope is enlarged, it should assist in expanding as rapidly as possible the vocational and technical stream to supply the demand for skilled workers and technicians for Hong Kong's growing industries. A working party should also be appointed by the Governor to study and make recommendations on expanding the present franchise by progressive steps and to set up a system of automatic registration of qualified voters wherever this is feasible.
Legislative Council
Furthermore, so long as the British Government does not agree to having direct elections to the Legislative Council, it is highly desirable for the elected group in the Urban Council to be represented in the Legislative Council. The British Government should introduce the practice of having the elected group nominating several of their members who would be appointed by the Governor to the Legislative Council. In this manner, it can be said that there would be a certain measure of elective representation, even though indirect, on the Legislative Council.
Unless the Government take steps to introduce these reforms in the local administration, we are going to lose the battle for the minds and hearts of our young people. These changes should be introduced as quickly as possible so that there can be an increasing number of elected local representatives to speak up for the Hong Kong community and to pave the way for the next generation to take over the leadership in local affairs which is rightfully theirs.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
It is time that more expatriate colonial civil servants should act in the role of senior advisers, and give wider opportunity to locally-born civil servants and elected community representatives so that they can be seen by the people as local leaders serving the local people in the cause of personal freedom, democracy, human rights and social justice. (Applause).
DR. A. M. S. BELL:- Mr. Chairman, I was shocked and appalled when someone said to me recently in the course of a discussion on Hong Kong's problems of illegal hawking, gambling and transportation, that corruption was a way of life and was inevitable and that I was naïve and foolish if I thought that it could be stamped out, and hadn't I seen the T.V. serial "The Power Game" which proved that corruption was what counted. The speaker was a person whose opinion might be heard and respected in some quarters. I thank God if I am naïve and foolish, if that means that I am sure that corruption must be stamped out of Hong Kong, if this place, which is the home of 4 million people is not to disintegrate. Corruption is a disease worse than cancer, it is a stinking, despicable tumour in our city, and just as with treatment of cancer the main tumour must be found and cut out and the suspected secondary spread taken care of by eradicating radiation. The initial search should be made in Government's own enormous departments. If we need to change our ordinances to do this, then we must change them so that anyone seriously suspected of corruption in Government service should be immediately retired from the service, as is done in Singapore. As has been said many times before, it is imperative to have an independent Anti Corruption Branch to deal with this. The persons employed by that branch should be paid by, and be directly responsible to the British Government in London.
It still would not be too late for a Royal Commission to be set up to investigate the Reform Club's report on organized crime which is even more true today than in 1965. I am angered and I am sure all honest men are angered to be told of vast sums of protection money such as ten thousand dollars per day being paid by each illegal gambling den and there are said to be 280 such dens making a total of two million eight hundred thousand dollars daily finding its way into corrupt pockets. Add to this the recently written about eight hundred and fifty dollars per month for each mini-van on the road, the unpaid up bets in illegal off course betting, the petty amounts paid for all sorts of illegalities e.g. hawking and other irregularities in complying with laws and regulations, which should have been stopped. This is not including the alleged terrific amounts of money in connection with narcotics generally. The position becomes almost fantastic, as I am told, that the accounts of these corrupt payments are often returned to the Inland Revenue Department amongst the expenses and are allowed as deductions by that department. But the Inland Revenue
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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
traditional background, they can only consider themselves as Hong Kong Chinese, and yet as such, there is a psychological yearning for them to be identified with Hong Kong as their home or "native place”.
In this vital area of community life, there is a serious gap in administrative policy. The United Kingdom Government and our senior expatriate civil servants who control the policies of the Hong Kong administration, cannot yet fully appreciate what is at stake since for most of them Hong Kong is not their permanent home and when they retire they will settle down in places other than Hong Kong.
In order to give the local people the opportunity to feel and believe that the local government is their government, and not just a colonial administration, it is fundamentally necessary that urgent steps be taken to change the Urban Council into a City Council with wider powers and responsibilities. As a start, the Urban Council can be given a pro- portion of the rates to be used for building more schools, clinics, nurseries and kindergartens in the resettlement estates and urban areas, and to take over and expand the present restricted scope of the Social Welfare Department. When the Urban Council's scope is enlarged, it should assist in expanding as rapidly as possible the vocational and technical stream to supply the demand for skilled workers and techni- cians for Hong Kong's growing industries. A working party should also be appointed by the Governor to study and make recommendations on expanding the present franchise by progressive steps and to set up a system of automatic registration of qualified voters wherever this is feasible.
Legislative Council
Furthermore, so long as the British Government does not agree to having direct elections to the Legislative Council, it is highly desirable for the elected group in the Urban Council to be represented in the Legislative Council. The British Government should introduce the practice of having the elected group nominating several of their members who would be appointed by the Governor to the Legislative Council. In this manner, it can be said that there would be a certain measure of elective representation, even though indirect, on the Legislative Council.
Unless the Government take steps to introduce these reforms in the local administration, we are going to lose the battle for the minds and hearts of our young people. These changes should be introduced as quickly as possible so that there can be an increasing number of elected local representatives to speak up for the Hong Kong community and to pave the way for the next generation to take over the leadership in local affairs which is rightfully theirs.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
277
It is time that more expatriate colonial civil servants should act in the role of senior advisers, and give wider opportunity to locally- born civil servants and elected community representatives so that they can be seen by the people as local leaders serving the local people in the cause of personal freedom, democracy, human rights and social justice. (Applause).
DR. A. M. S. BELL:-Mr. Chairman, I was shocked and appalled when someone said to me recently in the course of a discussion on Hong Kong's problems of illegal hawking, gambling and transpor- tation, that corruption was a way of life and was inevitable and that I was naïve and foolish if I thought that it could be stamped out, and hadn't I seen the T.V. serial "The Power Game" which proved that corruption was what counted. The speaker was a person whose opinion might be heard and respected in some quarters. I thank God if I am naïve and foolish, if that means that I am sure that corruption must be stamped out of Hong Kong, if this place, which is the home of 4 million people is not to disintegrate. Corruption is a disease worse than cancer, it is a stinking, despicable tumour in our city, and just as with treatment of cancer the main tumour must be found and cut out and the suspected secondary spread taken care of by eradicating radia- tion. The initial search should be made in Government's own enormous departments. If we need to change our ordinances to do this, then we must change them so that anyone seriously suspected of corruption in Government service should be immediately retired from the service, as is done in Singapore. As has been said many times before, it is im- perative to have an independent Anti Corruption Branch to deal with this. The persons employed by that branch should be paid by, and be directly responsible to the British Government in London.
It still would not be too late for a Royal Commission to be set up to investigate the Reform Club's report on organized crime which is even more true today than in 1965. I am angered and I am sure all honest men are angered to be told of vast sums of protection money such as ten thousand dollars per day being paid by each illegal gambling den and there are said to be 280 such dens making a total of two million eight hundred thousand dollars daily finding its way into corrupt pockets. Add to this the recently written about eight hundred and fifty dollars per month for each mini-van on the road, the unpaid up bets in illegal off course betting, the petty amounts paid for all sorts of illegalities e.g. hawking and other irregularities in complying with laws and regulations, which should have been stopped. This is not including the alleged terrific amounts of money in connection with narcotics generally. The position becomes almost fantastic, as I am told, that the accounts of these corrupt payments are often returned to the Inland Revenue Department amongst the expenses and are allowed as deductions by that department. But the Inland Revenue
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