should be elected and the appointment system should be dropped. In a meeting on 13 July 1949 attended by about 400 delegates from 142 registered Chinese civic organisations, the association and the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong and also two Kowloon-based commercial bodies culminated signatures of 142 organisations which presented membership of 141,800 people from the business, industry, labour and education sectors in the Chinese community. After the constitutional reform was turned down by Alexander Grantham and London in 1952, Percy Chen contested for the two resumed elected seats in the 1952 Urban Council election. He was the most energetic campaigner and was expected to win. Chen declared "there is no other Colony where the system of Government is so archaic; where the system of nomination instead of election plays a bigger part in the selection of so-called representatives." He concluded that the "Democratic system of Government has not been developed in Hong Kong." He urged voters to treat the 1952 Urban Council election as a referendum on reform and show London that 90 percent of those eligible cared enough to turn out on Election Day. Chen eventually lost to Brook Bernacchi and William Louey in the election. He contested again in the 1953 Urban Council election but was still unable to win a seat. He and Mok Ying-kwai also tried to bring the comfort mission from Canton to Hong Kong in support of the Tung Tau Tsuen fire victims in 1951. The mission was rejected by the colonial government and Mok was subsequently deported in September 1952, Chen succeeded Mok as the chairman of the association and sought help from the Hong Kong Chinese Clerks Association in reorganising the association. The association remained one of the three pillars of the pro-Communist leftist organisations throughout most of the time in Hong Kong under colonial rule (the other two being the Hong Kong and Kowloon Federation of Trade Unions and the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce). Marco Polo Club In 1956, Chen founded the Marco Polo Club, a dinner club with a select membership consisting of mainly foreign businessmen, journalists, trade representatives, and consular officers. It was the world's only social organisation in which Westerners could regularly and informally met the officials of the People's Republic of China, representatives from New China News Agency's Hong Kong branch, and the Bank of China over French meals and whiskeys and sodas. There