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4.
On receiving this report Sir M.
Nathan decided to grant no licence for Swallow Rock. He
added in a minute dated the 7th. November, 1904, that he
did not propose to raise the question of our right to
license boats at Tai 0, but would continue to license them
as if the right existed.
It appears that a percentage of
the profits on the fish caught at Swallow Rock is still
paid to the Chinese Authorities at Nan Tau.
5.
I now understand from the
enclosure in Your Lordship's Confidential Despatch of the
16th. of last June that "Mr. Secretary Chamberlain, in
"informing Sir Henry Blake that His majesty's Government
*had the usual territorial rights over these waters relied
"upon the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown" and that
Your Lordship is inclined to consider "that if the waters
"within 3 miles of Lantao are not subject to territorial
*rights on the part of His Majesty's Government they must
"be considered as mare liberum.*
I have therefore,
*
thought it desirable to supplement the statement laid
before Your Lordship by Sir F. D. Lugard, in order that
when the question of the boundaries of the New Territories
comes up for final settlement, His pjesty's Government
may
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