ENG-1984 — Page 55

THE SINO-BRITISH JOINT DECLARATION ON THE FUTURE OF HONG KONG 35

in many cases, the writers simply asked questions, made suggestions, expressed concern or made comments on specific aspects. These concerns and comments have all been taken into account... But on the question of overall acceptability, just over 1 000 individuals have indicated a clear stand. Of these, 677 indicated positive acceptance of the draft agreement and 364 rejected it. The range of individual views is described in Part II of this chapter.

Opinion Surveys

3.15 The findings of various independent opinion surveys. . . indicated general acceptance of the draft agreement. Although the surveys were of varying reliability and validity, the consistency of the findings on the general question of overall acceptability is worthy of note.

3.16 The findings of some of the surveys may be of significance:-

(a) Survey by the Survey Research Hong Kong Ltd. (SRH)(): This survey which was carried out by a professional market research company, was based on a random sample of 6 124 respondents aged 18 or over throughout Hong Kong and door-to- door interviews were conducted. The published report of this major survey was not available to the Office at the time of writing this Report, nevertheless, the Office has studied the tabulations of survey data which were received on 15 November 1984. In answer to one of the main questions in the survey (after reading visual aids briefly describing various sections in the draft agreement): "Taking the agreement as a whole now, do you believe the terms of this agreement are a good thing for the people of Hong Kong or a bad thing for them?", 10% said “very good”, 71% “quite good”, 14% "good in some way not so good in others”, 1% “not particularly good nor at all good" and 4% "don't know".

(b) Survey by the Hong Kong Association for Continuing Education(9): 8 000 question- naires were distributed, and 5 068 were completed and returned, 96% of which were by respondents aged 15–45. Of the respondents, 14% accepted the draft agreement unconditionally; 39% accepted it with some reservations and 44% accepted for want of a better alternative.

(c) Survey by the New Hong Kong Researchers Ltd.(10): This was a street poll in which 4 616 respondents aged 20 or over were interviewed at various vantage points on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon. 27% of the respondents did not understand the draft agreement, but 92% of those who did understand accepted it.

(d) Survey by Radio Television Hong Kong: This was a telephone survey seeking the views of elected District Board members on the draft agreement. 116 out of a total of 132 elected District Board members responded. 97% of them found the draft agreement acceptable.

(8) Survey Research Hong Kong Ltd. (SRH) is one of the largest market research companies in Hong Kong. (9) Hong Kong Association for Continuing Education is a group interested in educational issues with about 200

individual members and about 30 organisation members.

(10) New Hong Kong Researchers Ltd. is a newly formed organisation with about 200 members, some being

professionals, industrialists and businessmen.