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that demonstrable progress in the social programmes
outlined in Annex D will meet some UK criticism of the
Legislative Council that has provided for them;
(b)
pressure for greater public participation in Government
may increase with the new generation which has grown up in
very different circumstances than their immigrant parents.
It is surely better to provide channels for such participation
by those who want it, by a system we believe acceptable to
China, than by seeking to bottle it up;
(c)
avoidance of these potentially serious hazzards will depend on timing, degree, and above all on the Governor's ability to recommend the right personalities for membership of
the Council. Personalities must be found from new sources,
but they must be of sufficient calibre to be able both to
command public respect and to form part of an effective
legislative team. The Governor must not risk a membership
susceptible to communist manipulation at a time when H.M.
Government's negotiations could be prejudiced by the wrong
sort of words or actions in Legislative Council.
18.
Paragraph 17 (a) suggests that mutual adjustment will
be necessary to take account of political realities here and
the situation in Hong Kong. One such example is of current
concern. The International Committees of the TUC and the
National Executive Committee of the Labour Party have pressed
hard for the appointment of someone drawn from the independent (ie non-Communist, non-KMT) unions to the Legislative Council in
June. This is on the grounds that such an appointee could bring
wage earners' views to bear on the government process.
In his meetings with both Committees the Governor has been unable to convince them of the undesirability of appointing
members of what are, indeed, small and unrepresentative unions
to the Council. This is consistent with his general view that
LegCo members need to be people with wide experience of community
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