THESE are truly momentous days in Hong Kong. In spite of angry fist-shaking from that powerful neighbour across the border - and future sovereign - the Legislative Council has approved the political reforms that pave the way for more democracy to come to the territory. The vote by all but a few voices in the early hours of yesterday morning will go down in history as a watershed. Councillors who made it possible in the full knowledge that they were doing what was best for the people, even though, if China carries out its threat, the worthy edifice they have now begun building will be destroyed in 1997, deserve great credit. Quite properly, there was some dissent but also, quite properly, the majority was vindicated.
Trust vindicated Hong Kong's legislators are to be commended for a mature, responsible and fearless first step on the long and troublesome road of democratisation. There was a 100 per cent attendance for the debate that Beijing warned should not take place. Mr Patten, too, deserves a fair share of the praise. It is after all, his name which is attached to the reforms. He has defended them relentlessly and effectively both at home and abroad. Moreover, he possessed the courage and, it must be added, the sense to trust them in the hands of the legislature. That trust proved well-founded.
Now the twin pillars of Hong Kong's administration - Executive and Legislature - can face the uncertain future hand-in-hand. As Mr Patten noted yesterday, it was never the intention of the British to dump the reforms on Legco and then scarper. Rather, what was being formed was a new partnership. The legislators who voted the way they believe their constituencies wanted have embraced that concept.
There is, however, a rather serious gripe with Mr Patten. He consistently reassured the legislators moved to support his reforms that there was no secret deal being hatched in Beijing. And he solemnly promised that a ''full account'' of the failed 17 rounds of talks with the Chinese would be published so they could see that was so. It is a shame that a week such as this should be so marred by the decision to publish only a ''distilled'' version of the negotiations. To be precise, the document summarises the content of the first 14 rounds of talks and then provides a detailed account of the last three. More disturbingly, only details of the final negotiating position of the British is included in the account of the last three rounds of talks. There is not even an intimation of the other options put forward but withdrawn or rejected.
Mr Patten, who on one hand saw fit to entrust Hong Kong's political future in the men and women of Legco, apparently decided, as one source suggested, that he did not want to ''bombard Legco, the British Parliament and the people of Hong Kong with a barrage of papers''.
The MPs in London may have found little to interest them in such a pile of documents, but Mr Patten should realise the people of Hong Kong would have no objection to being bombarded with paper if it is important to their future. And what can be more important than the content of secret talks carried out on their behalf with their future sovereign country? Surely they can decide for themselves whether they want to read the whole account or skip parts. An unpleasant suggestion could be levelled at the Government that rather than ''distilling'' the contents of the rounds of talks, the result may have been to dilute or distort them. Furthermore, is not Mr Patten handing a propaganda coup to the Chinese? They have already provided a partial account of their version of the talks. Now they will have the opportunity to provide a fuller account no doubt differing from, and taking issue with, that of the British.
