He reached the heart of the matter with the observation that a citizen will be very slow to come forward with a complaint against an official if he knows that perhaps tomorrow or the next day or the day after, he has got to come and ask that official, or some colleague of that official, or somebody apparently identified with him in interest, for a concession, or a privilege, or some act of consideration.
It is only when men have clearly defined rights, he continued, that they enjoy the security to challenge the abuse of power and the ability to choke off corruption. If an official can grant or withhold permission “without the necessity of giving public reasons for the decision,” the Chief Justice declared, “you immediately create an opening for corruption or the suspicion of it.”
The Chief Justice’s address, particularly in its allusion to “closed-door” decisions and a lack of moral sense in the community, produced headlines and editorials in the local press and acute twinges of discomfort among those who either benefited by corruption or feared any public admission that it existed. In itself, the address was neither an exposé nor an indictment, but its delivery by the brilliant and articulate Chief Justice in one of the most solemn ceremonies of the governmental year rang a clear warning from the citadel: If the corrupters were haled before the courts, they could expect no easy-going tolerance for their misdeeds.
During the previous July, Governor Black had moved to correct one weakness peculiar to Hong Kong. Because of the Chinese tradition that personal contact with the government is to be avoided, many residents were reluctant to approach an official for such routine information as where to apply for an identity card or how to locate a lost pet. If they plucked up the courage to ask a question, they assumed that some fee, to be paid either above or below the table, would be exacted for any answer given. The situation offered a happy hunting ground for grafters, either those on the government payroll who dealt with the general public or the self-appointed private “fixers” who directed the applicant to a particular official for a small fee. Sometimes the fixer and the official were in cahoots and sheared the lamb at both ends of his journey.
Why it took the colony 120 years to plug this rat hole is a baffling question. It was done at last by creating a Public Enquiry Service with an all-Chinese staff capable of speaking virtually any local dialect and of supplying direct and accurate answers to every kind of question about the government and its functions. Coming under the general authority of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, it is headed by Paul K. C. Tsui, a native of Hong Kong and a colony administrative officer since 1948. Controller Tsui spent months roaming the colony, talking to editors, listening to gossip in goldsmiths’ shops and to the complaints people dictated to sidewalk letter-writers or expressed to housing and tenancy offices.
When he felt that he had gained some idea of the questions and problems on people’s minds, Mr. Tsui sought the answers to them from the appropriate departments. He then assembled a small staff, compiled and cross-indexed a vast store of information in readily accessible form, and established an office in the entrance hall of the Central Government Offices, West Wing, on July 3, 1961. There his three information officers, who had expected to have to handle 80 requests for information a day, found them streaming in at the rate of about 135 a day. Early in 1962, a similar office had to be opened in Kowloon to meet the same demand. When the Chinese people were satisfied that they could get specific, friendly answers to their problems without having to pay a fee, they were both amazed and grateful.
Mr. Tsui, taking a tip from the operators of goldsmiths’ shops, put his staff on hard chairs and the public on soft chairs, permitting them to talk comfortably across a low counter in a pleasant, informal atmosphere. At times it takes an agitated inquirer fifteen minutes to blow off steam before he can get around to stating what it is he really wants to know, but the staff will patiently wait him out. A married woman about thirty years of age appears to represent the favorite official type of most questioners, although they like also to have an older male official handy as a corroborating reference. Queries in English are handled as efficiently as are those in Chinese.
Once the news of this service reaches all colony residents—many English and Chinese had still not heard of it in 1962—one of the most prevalent forms of petty graft and ill-will toward government will have been eliminated.
Chief Justice Hogan’s attack on “closed-door” decisions and official impropriety was followed a week later by the sixth report of the Advisory Committee on Corruption, composed of a five-man body appointed by Governor Black from the membership of the Executive and Legislative Councils.
The report found the highest susceptibility to corruption among the departments dealing directly with the general public—police, public works, urban services, commerce and industry and refugee resettlement. Inspection services of all kinds, it said, showed the greatest vulnerability to graft.