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.