Hong Kong 8/1307.
410
W.O
W.O
37857
w.o. 73560
17812/91
778/91.2
7198
authority, or (d) on final resort, if the three Departments concerned are unable to agree, by reference to the Government.
3. The opinion of Mr Stanhope on questions I and II is fully stated in the letters addressed to the Colonial Office from this Office on the 23rd March Hong Kong 8/1289 and 4th July Hong Kong 8/1298 nor does it seem necessary that he should do more than make the following observations on the enclosed letter from the Colonial Office.
4. The Colonial Office in paragraph 2 states that the proper interpretation of the language of the Memorandum enclosed in the Colonial Office Circular of the 9th June 1890 addressed to the various colonies "is strictly a legal question and it was for this reason "that Lord Knutsford proposed to submit the case to the "Lord Chancellor; but this is scarcely borne out by the Colonial Office letters of the 4th December 1891, 10th February 1892 and 19th May 1892, in which the question proposed for legal arbitration is the general question of the mode of valuing the lands, and not the interpretation of the Memo.
Moreover the Memo itself does not possess the character of an Act of the Legislature or of a legal instrument. It was the outcome of the deliberations
i
of