ENG-1990 — Page 20

SHAPING UP FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Legislative Council is likely to be, will be someone to be reckoned with. The opportunity for leadership will be there. The challenge will be to seize it.

The constitution is unlikely to remain unchanged far into the next century. Nominations to Legislative Council will go before then.

The functional constituencies bring to the Legislative Council a variety of experience in all principal areas of social life. They could last for a long time - the University seats in the British parliament were only abolished in post-war years. The downside risk is that they could destroy themselves if their representatives become so narrowly obsessed with the need to maintain the support of their electors, that they neglect the common good.

The importance of the directly-elected members will be their concern for the geo- graphical districts from which they come. Hong Kong is no longer a single city but a number of urban concentrations, few of which have developed much in the way of in- dividual identities.

Events in the Legislative Council will shape the nature of the appeal that members will have to make to their constituents. The Legislative Council is not required-to form a government, to propose taxation or expenditure. These are the duties that force the creation of party discipline. Without them it does not seem to me that a party type of discipline will develop very quickly. If it becomes the practice to form voting groups with some of the discipline of political parties then this pattern will spread to the constituencies where organisations loyal to the groups will have to generate voting support. If group -discipline is less important, as I expect it will be, then the party type of organisation will be

less necessary and performance will be judged more by individual merit.

The powers to propose taxation and expenditure will remain with the government - that is the Governor in Council on the basis of proposals made by the civil service. This is a structure that looks as though it will last well into the next century. It places great power in the hands of the Governor now and the Chief Executive in the future. Appointments to the Executive Council are now made by London on the recommendation of the Governor and in future will be by the Chief Executive. The relations between Executive and Legislative Councils have been good in the past though it has not been unknown for an Executive Councillor to speak in Legislative Council against a policy endorsed by Executive Council. Nowhere will the Governor's and the Chief Executive's skill be more severely tested by appointment, and subsequent advocacy, than in maintaining the understanding between these two bodies which is essential for progress.

People have traditionally listened carefully to the Governor and will no doubt also listen to the future Chief Executive. An area in which we may detect a change will be in the press though I hope it will not lose any of the vehemence with which it lambasts - and sometimes praises - local bigwigs. We have lived for years with a press that can be highly critical of affairs here and have survived without too much of a bruising.

The Special Administrative Region's foreign relations will be conducted by the central government in Beijing although Hong Kong will retain full autonomy in external commercial relations. Britain will be a foreign country with a consulate in Hong Kong looking after British interests. While the consulate will handle all immigration matters now handled by the Hong Kong Immigration Department for Britain, one of the consulate's main functions will be promote trade, as is done now by the British Trade Commission.

The change of sovereignty means, for us, a change in the metropolitan power. In the past we have managed without much assistance from the metropolis and no doubt can do so