If we cannot have universal suffrage, if we cannot have government with a popular mandate, what can we have? Beijing must come up with an alternative to the current political structure. Otherwise, it is condemning Hong Kong to stagnation as yesterday's interests and industries drive government policy, and younger, more energetic people and businesses seek a future elsewhere.

DOMINIC QUINNELL, Central

Just do it, Mr Tsang

The air in Discovery Bay was so bad the other day that we could not even see Lo Fu Tau, (the mountain peak behind Phase 2) from The Plaza. Sadly, it is increasingly difficult for us to placate ourselves by saying that at least the air isn't as bad as it is over there in Hong Kong or Kowloon.

At an environmental conference this week co-organised by the South China Morning Post, we heard a government representative say that Hong Kong's power companies have the right to make a profit. Perhaps this was said as an excuse for not forcing, say, Hongkong Electric - by purely objective and quantitative standards Hong Kong's foulest corporate citizen - to equip itself with the latest desulphurisation technology. To do so would bite into its bottom line.

No one would argue that Hongkong Electric has no right to produce electricity and then sell it. But it does not have the right to do so while polluting Hong Kong's air.

Perhaps the power companies are not putting a lid on their emissions with any sense of urgency because they are waiting for the so-called clean-coal technology the government spokesman said should be available in about 10 to 12 years' time.

I don't want to pooh-pooh carbon sequestration; after all, putting a man on the moon was once scoffed at. But, in the meantime, the government must force local power companies to fit out their plants with the latest antipollution technology, urgently, as a matter of public health.

The government spokesman was the first person to applaud a woman in the audience who spoke out passionately on how all of us must do our part to save the planet. Of course, it's true that the public can do a lot more when it comes to conservation. My young daughters know to turn off the lights when they leave a room, and they take their baths together.

But how is that going to force the foul corporate sector to do its part?

No, business here being what it is, we must look to the government to take a stand on our behalf.

To Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, I say: if you want to be Napoleon (as some suspect) then be a Napoleon of our time. Be the man who cleaned up Hong Kong's air. Be the man who made Hong Kong beautiful again. Do it. Just do it.

JOY KINGAN, Discovery Bay

Cathedral's prohibitions

Former St John's organist David Francis Urrows seeks an index of items prohibited by Hong Kong's Anglican cathedral ('Banned at St John's, April 26).

For the Queen's 80th birthday service on April 22, the cathedral also banned the hymn Jerusalem.

It banished Commonwealth flags from inside the church to the porch (even though other flags hang permanently in the side chapel).

It was reluctant to allow King's College Choir (which also turns 80 this year) to take part and rudely prohibited another choir from singing.

The speech about the queen's support for charities was excluded from the main service. The learned clergy even insisted that a message from the queen could not be read out in their presence. Like the singing of God Save the Queen, this was done after the service, when they had all trooped out.

Bearing in mind the queen is the supreme governor of the Church of England, such arbitrary prohibitions are impossible to justify. In fact, all these decisions have made those in charge of St John's a laughing stock.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Lamma fumes

Hongkong Electric recently opened an education centre at Hong Kong's sole wind turbine with great fanfare. Lamma Winds, the public-relations department suggested, demonstrated the company's commitment to an environmentally sustainable future.

Can someone from Hongkong Electric therefore explain why the company considers it necessary to provide a minibus service up and down the gently sloping hill upon which the turbine is sited on Lamma Island? Could they also explain why the driver is allowed to sit waiting at the top of the hill, with his engine chugging away, before picking up the passengers for the downhill trip?

Lamma has, until environmentally friendly power arrived, managed to move its population around without internal combustion engines - apart from when they need an ambulance.

Do the day-trippers not have legs?

LIZ GOWER, Lamma

Suffering of millions

I believe the author of the letter 'Outrage outdated' (April 26)) is Italian and lived for some time in Japan. He may therefore not know the background of the Chinese people's 'unjustified revival of the past' - as he puts it - concerning the Japanese war in Asia, or be aware that South Korea shares China's fears.

As my late husband was the founder of the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia, I think I can help him.

The defeated nations of Germany and Japan prospered after the second world war, the only difference being that the former humbly apologised while the latter was permitted to restore its wartime emperor to power.

For many years, Japan was not permitted to build up its military power, and the Chinese remained silent on the subject, believing peace had been achieved. The movement to revive the past began about two decades ago, when Japan was allowed to revive its military power under the same warlike regime that had tried to colonise Southeast Asia. To make matters worse, the US virtually appointed Japan its watchman over the Pacific region.

Militarism then revived among the extreme right ruling party, and school textbooks were changed to whitewash Japan's wartime intentions.

My husband's movement seeks a genuine state apology and compensation for lives ruined during the Japanese invasion. Its overriding aim is peace in Southeast Asia.

For the letter 'Outrage outdated' to compare the cruel deaths and suffering of countless millions of Asians at the hands of the Japanese with China's ban on some of the Rolling Stones' ribald songs is an insult to human intelligence.

ELSIE TU, Kwun Tong

Misunderstood majesty

Poor King Canute seems to be coming in for a lot of bad press recently. Harry's cartoon of April 25 showed King Gyanendra of Nepal sitting Canute-like trying to turn back the wave of public opinion against him.

In the same edition of the South China Morning Post, a letter writer claimed that, without reform, the English Schools Foundation would have to wait, like King Canute, for the tide to turn on subsidies.

In fact, Canute was a shrewd politician, but he was surrounded by sycophants who claimed he was so powerful he could even turn back the tide. To prove this was nonsense, he sat on his throne by the edge of the sea and commanded the tide to retreat, which, of course, it didn't.

'Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven, earth and sea obey,' he is recorded as having said.

TIM GALLAGHER, Causeway Bay

Border blues

In 'Pawns in the immigrant game' (April 26), Michael Chugani claims that 'racism is driving part of the immigration debate in the US'. 'Racism' is the usual red herring used by US Democrats eager to promote illegal immigration to broaden their political base, but it is not the relevant point. There are homeowners on the Mexican-US border who every day get thousands of illegal immigrants crossing their yards. They have every reason to be frustrated.

JOHN CHIU, New York