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CDS Drace-Francis Esq
Assistant Political Adviser
HONG KONG
Your reference
Our reference
Date 21 November 1977
Dear Charles,
DOCUMENTS ON HONG KONG
1. John Thompson has passed us your letter of 14 October and has agreed that we should reply direct. I am sorry it has taken 30 long to deal with the points you raised. However, I now enclose the following, which I hope may be of relevance and interest :
a.
Correspondence dated March-April 1860 between Harry Parkes, Laou, Governor-General of the Provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, Sir Hercules Robinson, the then Governor of Hong Kong and Frederick Bruce, British Minister to China, on the subject of the lease of the southern part of Kowloon Peninsula (Tsim Sha Tsui) and of Stonecutters Island to Harry Parkes. The correspondence includes a copy of the lease.
b. Copy of the map attached to the 1898 Convention on the extension of Hong Kong. You will see that the northern boundary there marked of the area leased to Great Britain runs in a straight line from Deep Bay to Mirs Bay. Such a boundary line was proposed in correspondence from Sir Claude MacDonald in Peking to the Marquess of Salisbury in London, leading up to the Convention. The Convention itself stipu- lates that the exact boundaries should be fixed after proper surveys had been made. The final delimitation of the northern boundary was made by Wang Tsin-hsien, appointed representative of the Viceroy at Canton, and J H S Lockhart, a Colonial Secretary and Registrar-General of Hong Kong. This appears to be the boundary still accepted today.
C. Copy of Wang's and Lockhart's agreement, dated 19 March 1899.
d. Section 39 of Ordinance No 31 of the Hong Kong Ordinances for 1911. This confirms the boundaries of Hong Kong.
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e. A Research Department paper of 1 May 1950, on Chinese claims to Hong Kong. The appendix carries the revised defini- tions of Hong Kong's boundaries as set out in Ordinance No 2 for 1950, together with amendments..
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