Hurd's 'good English word'

To answer Peter Olaes' puzzlement (South China Morning Post, October 15) at Governor Chris Patten's use of the word 'Peking' throughout his policy address, a look at what the then Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, said in Parliament in December 1993 may help.

He told the House of Commons that there was no reason to 'abandon a perfectly good English word like Peking'. The British Government would continue to refer to the Chinese capital as 'Peking' despite the fact that its official name had changed to 'Beijing' 'I don't say Moskva (Moscow), Roma (Rome), or Bruxelles (Brussels),' he said.

K.Y. TSUI Kowloon