appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

SCMP Reporter

Sir Philip Haddon-Cave was proudly a colonial civil servant. He saw his calling as both honourable and worthwhile. His Hong Kong career, which began in 1962, spanned the territory's development from a tentative economic entity to major international player. During it, the capable administrator became a key figure.

 Somewhat formidable to junior colleagues and with a brisk though polite manner when sitting behind the Financial Secretary's desk he occupied for a decade from 1971 to 81, Haddon-Cave was in private moments a relaxed, well-humoured man.

 He read immensely, was interested in everything from arts to literature to the eternal drama of changing world power structures.

 He was a generalist in a pattern developed by the British Foreign and Colonial Offices to rule an empire.

 Today, his mannerism and style could seem outdated. But for his era, he was a well-tuned performer. He was also, in his polite, somewhat distant manner, a nice man.

 Haddon-Cave died suddenly on Monday, aged 74, from a heart attack. He was in a taxi with his wife, Elizabeth, near their home in Oxfordshire, Britain.

 He told me once he could think of no more noble calling than to be a competent civil servant. Work dominated his life. He regarded his succession of steadily more senior positions as both a pleasure and a duty.

 During his years as financial secretary, a period of ever-mounting budget surpluses, he was given the nickname Choy Sun (God of Fortune). Nobody would have had the temerity to call him this to his face.

 His philosophy was to provide a stout framework to allow business to develop. He was the father of 'positive non-intervention' in the economy - letting the market lead the way - but towards the end of his career, which overlapped with the governorship of Lord MacLehose, the government became a major player in many social roles.

 Spending expanded on education, welfare, infrastructure, health and housing.

 Haddon-Cave was born in Tasmania to British parents but he did not take up Australian citizenship - something which often led to confusion when visitors, noting his birthplace, asked him what an Australian was doing running a British colony. He did his first degree in Hobart before going on to Kings College, Cambridge. But he had been brought up an Englishman, believing that colonial service was a duty.

  That belief took him to Kenya and the Seychelles before he arrived in Hong Kong in 1963.

 His career lay mostly in trade and industry. He became financial secretary in 1971 and presented 10 budgets, fiscal displays that delved into the most minute aspect of government expenditure.

 His rise to chief secretary in 1981 was welcomed by the business community in Hong Kong but not being applauded universally in London. Throughout his career, Haddon-Cave clung to the belief that his task was to work for the community. He argued strongly for local interests over those put forward by some British officials and politicians.

 In some ways, he was the despair of social hostesses. He disliked Chinese food and was allergic to monosodium glutamate. Rather than go to a banquet and toy with a meal, he made his preferences known. So when a 12-seat festive banquet was laid, there would be 11 sets of chopsticks and a knife and fork. As others enjoyed abalone and birds' nest soup, he would be presented with a large steak.

 He liked to keep fit, and when he lived in the chief secretary's official residence at Barker Road, made good of the Victoria House tennis courts.

  Once he became chief secretary, his working day began early with newspapers and radio news, and he was a fanatic for finishing files, then pushing them out for action. He took his work seriously: when he had to host dinners or attend functions, he sometimes murmured that he would rather be home with a bulky file to study.

 He also took seriously the responsibility of training and inspiring his staff and junior colleagues. Many of the current top administrators in Hong Kong remember him kindly. He remarked frequently on the excellence of the young recruits with whom he worked, with an abiding admiration for graduates of the University of Hong Kong who had chosen the civil service path.

 At least one afternoon a week he would go out to see the conditions of shopkeepers and schoolteachers, hawkers and small merchants.

 I happened to be with him one afternoon in 1982 as he made a routine inspection in Cheung Sha Wan. As he chatted to officials in the old fish market, there was disturbing news; a deranged man had run amok in a nearby school, stabbing several children to death and injuring many others.

 Instantly, he was on the way. He moved through the bloodied playground, stopping to console teachers, asking policemen if all was under control, querying officials that everything possible was being done to aid survivors and care for the grieving parents.

 He was doing what he had been trained to do; to serve the people.



A man of high service