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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

CHAIRMAN:-Certainly, Mr. Blaker.

MR. BERNACCHI:-A supplementary.

Can you, Mr. Chairman, say what progress, if any, has been made on the proposal which I think, originated from the Hawker Policy Select Committee that one legal draftsman be seconded to this Council on a permanent or tem- porary basis?

CHAIRMAN:-I would need notice of that question, Mr. BERNACCHI. I don't think any progress has been made.

MOTIONS.

(1) MR. HENRY H. L. Hu moved the following Motion:

"Resolved that this Council urges the Government to consider as soon as possible the necessary amendment to Section 45 of the Urban Council Ordinance (Cap. 101 of the Laws of Hong Kong) which reads:

"The proceedings of the Council shall be conducted in the English language';

so that both English and Chinese may be used in the Council's meetings."

He said: Mr. Chairman, today's Motion which is now before you is entitled as follows: "Resolved that this Council urges the Govern- ment to consider as soon as possible the necessary amendment to Section 45 of the Urban Council Ordinance (Cap. 101 of the Laws of Hong Kong) which reads: "The proceedings of the Council shall be conducted in the English language'; so that both English and Chinese may be used in the Council's meetings." It is a motion which is long overdue and which is a harmless one. I hope that the Motion could get the full support of this Council. It is not like the other motions which were moved by me and for which Members thought that they should have further consideration at select committee level.

Members may recall that in August 1965 in the Urban Council's meeting I did ask three questions concerning the use of Chinese language in the Urban Council and the Urban Services Department. One of the three questions concerned the language barrier in the Urban Council itself and this was the question: "What steps have been or will be taken to assure the people of Hong Kong that the language barrier or difficulty will gradually be removed so far as this Council is concerned?" In reply to this question, the Chairman of the Council said that an Ad Hoc Committee had been set up by the Standing Committee of the Whole Council to study and report upon the feasibility of introducing a system of simultaneous translation at Council meetings.

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After having asked these questions, I moved, in October 1965, a Motion urging Government to introduce the system at present carried out by the Urban Services Department of answering all Chinese corres- pondence in Chinese, and, whenever possible, application forms used by Government departments must be both in English and Chinese. This Motion was carried with eighteen votes and nil against, and with five abstentions. After that Motion, Government has carried out a lot of small steps in using Chinese as a medium to communicate with the general public. So far as I know, the Chinese has been widely used for the communication between various schools and the Education Department. Such Government moves have greatly abridged the gap between the Government and the general public.

In April 1966, I asked a further question in Urban Council meeting about the simultaneous translation. In October of the same year, i.e. on the 7th of October 1966, we had a mock meeting for the simultaneous translation in the Urban Council meeting. I am sorry to say that this mock meeting has constantly been used as an excuse for the delay to implementing the bi-lingual system in the Urban Council meetings. After the conclusion of that mock meeting, it was said that the mock meeting was a failure. But the experiment was the first trial of the system so far as Urban Council is concerned, and I did not think that the experiment was such a failure that it should be used as a reason for not accepting this system. Success and failure are relative terms; I should think that many of the problems could be overcome with training and practice. But unfortunately, nothing was done since that mock meeting by the relevant authority concerning this matter. On the other hand, there are two things which are worthy of our considera- tion. The first matter was the announcement by the Governor con- cerning our local reform at the Newspapers' Society's Dinner in October 1966. Sir David said that "Local authorities must be local, enabling local initiative to be exercised in the management of purely local affairs within their scope." I would say that local initiative can never be exercised in the management of local affairs unless the local language is to be adopted and used in all administrative councils, including the Urban Council. Many useful talents in Hong Kong cannot contribute their efforts for the common good of the community simply because of the language barrier. In order to run local business successfully, we must not shut the door to those local members of our community who are willing to take part. The reason for my advocating the use of both languages in Urban Council meetings is not the end but the means to encourage more local people to participate in the local affairs. The second matter was that on the 14th of February 1968, the Governor made an important announcement in the Budget Debate concerning the Chinese as official language. I now quote what the Governor said: “This year, also we will be considering further, as we have done with some success for many years, ways and means of giving our two main