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SCMP Reporter

THE chairman of the influential Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Mr David Howell, believed Mr Patten was right to go ahead with the gazetting of the package.

  ''There remains a very strong case which I think Chris Patten is right to proceed with for very modest local reforms to strengthen their [Hongkong's] system,'' he said.

  ''The Chinese will recognise that destabilising and smashing up Hongkong is a high price to pay for the whole of China's hopes for the future in the modern world.''   He said Hongkong's stock market was prone to the jitters and he expected the nosedive would not be the first or the last time between now and 1997.

  Mr Howell, who met Mr Patten recently, said he had found him extremely confident.

  ''He is proceeding in a very cautious and careful way, but nevertheless the result has been the Chinese on a very high horse.

  ''A lot of people in Asia recognised that while everybody wanted to be courteous to the Chinese Government and welcome its market-orientated reforms, they did not want to kow-tow to them.''   But a different view came from the traditionally pro-Beijing chairman of the Anglo-Chinese Parliamentary group, Mr Robert Adley, who said he was ''fairly worried'' about what was going on.

  ''Chris Patten has broken the agreement,'' he said.

  ''What Chris Patten is doing is creating tremendous uncertainty and gambling Hongkong's future stability for what is really a bargaining point.''   The Chinese Government would say all it wanted to do was stick to the agreements signed between the two countries.

  He added: ''I don't doubt Chris Patten's good intentions but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Mr Patten has to find a way, not the Chinese.''   He accused the Governor of having a ''publish and be damned'' attitude.

  ''The people of Hongkong are going to suffer, not the people of China, and he is gambling with their future,'' he said.

  Labour's spokesman on Hongkong, Mr Alan Rogers, said he was ''very disappointed'' the Governor had gone ahead and published his proposed legislation.

  ''If the Chinese were upset before, then they are going to be very upset now,'' he said.

  ''Last week, the Governor said he wanted to go the extra mile. I am surprised he has dropped out after 100 yards.''   Mr Rogers said the argument about extending democracy was not only about extending the franchise but about the structural relationship between Legco and Exco.

  He believed there should have been a much wider debate with the Chinese about the future of democracy.

  Mr Rogers said he was concerned that, under the Patten arrangements, a chief executive of the SAR appointed by the Chinese could then select his own Executive Council and together rule Hongkong with Legco reduced to a consultative role unable even to initiate its own legislation.

  But Liberal Democrat leader Mr Paddy Ashdown urged support for Mr Patten.

  ''I believe we are in for a very turbulent time,'' he said.

  ''The Chinese will make it as difficult as they possibly can. But, at the end of the day, I think Chris Patten has taken a series of moves which ought to be supported, are supported within Hongkong and should be supported in Britain.''   Mr Ashdown said Mr Patten had stuck scrupulously within the letter of the Joint Declaration and, unless some element of democracy was introduced before 1997, most people rightly felt there could be no democracy after 1997.

  ''If that is the case then all the brightest and best in Hongkong will simply leave, as will the money, and the destruction of Hongkong's prosperity will proceed apace.''     But, he said, the question for the Chinese Government at the end of the day was: Do they want a Hongkong which is vibrant, prosperous and contributes a huge amount to the Chinese purse, or do they want to inherit a Hongkong that is broken-backed.

  Former Governor Lord MacLehose said he had no comment to make on Mr Patten's actions and Lord Wilson was not available to comment.



Howell in support of 'modest' proposals