LETTERS Beware of the tiger
Sir: Before the Conservative Party gets totally hooked on the 'Tiger Economy' model being urged on it by our Governor, Chris Patten, I hope they will listen to the warnings of those, like me, who have the good fortune to live in one.
It is indeed pleasant to enjoy low taxes and an atmosphere of dynamism and enter- prise. It is not so pleasant to endure the degradation of the environment, the basic disrespect for social cohesion, the single- minded devotion to materialism and the callousness about human suffering which goes with it.
In short it won't work in Britain. You are in a country where a Conservative Party devoted to free market policies and in power for a decade and a half can still not find the political will to demolish an expen- sive and, in 'Tiger' terms, crippling social security system. There's no will to do it. Will your civilised, in 'Tiger' terms boring, middle classes suddenly turn away from their suburban gardens and devote them- selves 24 hours a day to mammon? Only a few have done that in the last decade and a half.
After his four years in Hong Kong, Chris Patten has one lesson to bring back to Britain. Despite a 'Tiger' Patten-led envi- ronment campaign, Hong Kong is still a filthy place, getting filthier by the minute and after the British imperialists leave in 1997 even the things that are being done now will stop. Despite his 'Tiger' recogni- tion of the value of education, the standard of education here is abysmal — and it won't get any better. His 'Tiger' government has attempted to improve slightly on the mini- mal social security system here — and is attacked by the Tigers across the border for `welfarism'. His values do not strike a chord here. In other words his values, which he shares with most British people, are not Tiger values, but middle-of-the-road British values. He has not given them up in his time here and they will not give them up simply because they are told that if they do they can have a Tiger economy. The values they support require high taxes to pay for them.
Only one of the 'Tiger' economies in Asia provides its people with a decent envi- ronment, a good education system and a worthwhile level of social security. The trouble is that it follows a completely differ- ent political model from any that the British people would put up with. It is Sin- gapore.
George Rosenberg
B8 Winchester House, 53 Stanley Fort, 160 Wong Ma Kok Road, Stanley, Hong Kong
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