What about the strategic development plan for South Lantau being studied by Financial Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen's taskforce? What is the actual result of the 'public consultation'? Overwhelming opposition, I bet, but nowhere is that mentioned in this disingenuous letter.

I echo Ashley Brewin's letter the same day ('How to win my vote') and add a further criterion for candidates: you will need to rein in out-of-control government departments who repeatedly trample the public interest in 'planning' Hong Kong's development, degrading the quality of life for all of us, whether in Victoria Harbour or the outlying islands.

JOHN SCHOFIELD, Lantau

Bad air is HK's problem

Pollution is worse when the air is still. If there is no wind, then the pollution must be locally sourced. If it is locally sourced, it is locally curable. There is no need to wait for action in Guangdong.

Why will the government not immediately propose strict limits on the pollutants most likely to kill the old prematurely - especially sulfur emissions from power stations? The skies in London, Tokyo and even Taipei are clear. In those cities, one can see the sun setting on the horizon - a pleasure denied us for most of the year, when it settles into a murky haze.

It seems 'our' administration puts the profits of corporations before the lives and pleasures of its citizens. This only reinforces the contempt in which it is held.

PAUL SERFATY, Mid-Levels

Get rid of court costume

The trouble with principles, rules and regulations is that they can be a bore, tyrannising our passions and turning us into chunks of cold rationality.

Barrister Roderick Murray found comic relief in his eccentric conduct in a courtroom - as did some who read about his sunglasses, gold shoe buckles, rolled-up trouser cuffs and naked feet. How many trapped in the daily finery of dress envy such courage? How many secretly rebel against the shackles of etiquette, or recoil daily from the paraphernalia of their profession?

To the humanist, Mr Murray is a patient with an incurable disease. To the individualist, he was crying out to assert this quality and his passions in the sepulchre of urbane living. The romanticist empathises with a bleeding heart: what is life without love?

But would the Bar Association cut him down? That depended on the value it places on free expression and the individual. This time, it did our city proud, at least the expatriates and the westernised, a sector who perpetuate much of the colonial past and still lead society by the nose.

One non-western non-Chinese expressed a different view. He was coolly censured for his lack of 'compassion for a troubled and possibly sick human being' and his 'language and remarks, which are of a prejudicial and inflammatory nature,' and was advised to 'learn to control his prejudices against the British'. N. Balakrishnan's letter (August 14) exhibits straightforward emotions. No individual with a healthy sense of racial or national dignity, whose country has undergone imperialism, would 'take exception' to him. He demanded an end to colonial privileges, set up an alarm against an elitist legal system that has surpassed its British counterpart in indulging silks' bank accounts, and appealed to open up the profession internationally to people such as American and South Asian lawyers. His also was a humanistic cry to heed the taxpayer.

For the expatriates and their local counterparts, Peter Olsen's appeal to compassion (August 17) was music to the ears. But for those who look beyond a privileged existence or live among the less fortunate, it jarred. How about 'the poor of Hong Kong, who have psychiatric problems aplenty and no old boys network to bail them out?' No society can have a healthy, or 'full', democracy if its legal system is elitist and exclusivist. Equally, no true democracy can be based on equality before the law when its representatives carve out social, economic and, recently, political advantages for themselves.

The legal profession is, by modern standards, a service industry. Lawmakers who hold this city up to an American standard of scrutiny can learn a bit about the true spirit of egalitarianism. The first step to prove that our legal profession truly embraces this spirit - the envy of not a few British liberals - is to get rid of that funny costume, the symbol of feudalism and anti-egalitarianism.

MARGARET CHU, One Country Two Systems Research Institute

Triad connection

It was not I who named the Hong Kong government 'the triad' (or our society 'gangsters'); William Mak did that himself in his August 27 letter. Local triads have been hailed as Chinese patriotic organisations in the past; presumably neither they nor Beijing are upset by that label.

For Mr Mak's further information, I am a proud permanent resident of Hong Kong and citizen of the US (where he has chosen to live regardless of its 'racism'. Might that have something to do with its economic and political freedom?)

I will be voting later this year in elections in both sovereignties, and I hope he and all Hong Kong citizens continue to enjoy that freedom as well as the freedom to have our opinions published by the press.

RHONDDA MAY, Tsim Sha Tsui

Tunnel policy puzzle

It seems that Robert Wilson's article, 'High toll of price distortion' (July 27), went unnoticed by the transport department in terms of a response.

He perfectly described the fact that tolls for the Cross-Harbour Tunnel are excessively low when based on inflation since its opening in 1972, and that, unfortunately, taxpayers and non-users are subsidising users. Also, the government is making the public 'double-pay' for this tunnel use in terms of inefficiency, time wastage and impact of pollution. The government should explain why these tolls are so low (or at least not equalised with other tunnel prices), and why nothing is done to regulate the use of this tunnel by trucks and delivery vehicles. The answers have a severe impact on the government's claim that there is an 'overriding need' for the Central Harbour Reclamation. If our tunnels were used efficiently, there would be no need to have more roads leading to the Cross-Harbour Tunnel because traffic patterns would change.

Also, it is amazing that the Western Harbour Tunnel has been allowed to raise its prices due to increases in costs. Could its management explain what the variables in its operating expenses are, and how escalations in these prices have justified a rise in tolls? The only logical guess is that wages are responsible. Why has the Cross-Harbour Tunnel not raised prices in line with the same 'increased expenses'?

The public is paying a high price for the inefficient use of these tunnels, with the end result being another blow to our lifestyle - a reclaimed harbour. How is this being allowed to occur? The public is completely being forgotten.

KENNY WONG, North Point

Stick to the pay cuts

I partly agree with Lam Yan-yu ('With inflation, hold cuts', August 27).

The return of inflation and the double-digit GDP growth in the second quarter were extraordinary. The picture is a surreal mixture of the mainland solo travellers' scheme and the gloomy outlook for local employment.

Private sector employees have experienced hefty pay cuts and painful layoffs since late 1997. Will the pessmistic trend be reversed when major private employers keep exporting jobs to the mainland and other low-wage countries?

Staff in public subsidised organisations are not better off. Civil servants are the only exception. I urge them to stick to the 0-3-3 salary cut plan, part of the remedial solution to Hong Kong's snowballing financial deficit.

LIZA NG, Causeway Bay