FCO_49_622_PLANNING_PAPER_ON_HONG_KONG_1976 — Page 19

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and Hong Kong is high on the list of leading commercial

centres of the world.

In many public statements, Britain

has made it clear that she is committed to preserving

the integrity and furthering the prosperity of Hong Kong.

We thus carry a deep moral responsibility to the inhabitants

to maintain in their interests what we have created and

encouraged them to rely on. In any consideration of

British policy, therefore, the most important single

factor must be the interests of the pwople who live and

work there.

4.

to

If we are/discharge our responsibilities to

the people of Hong Kong, we should take account of their

own desires and feelings, as well as of those which we

(with a wholly different European attitude to many things)

believe that they ought to have. Their principal

concerns are:-

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(a) confidence in their Government, in their

own future, and in HMG's commitment, as a guarantee

of both;

(b) assured employment, with a high level of

disposable income;

(c) personal safety (from violent crime);

(d) adequate housing, within the means of the poor;

(e) decent educational, medical and health services;

f a social welfare net, based on need, which will

prevent the old, handicapped, sick and unfortunate

from falling Bagko19 203subsistence levePage 19 of 203