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C6/54
145
Hon. Colonial Secretary,
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In studying the question of the boundaries of the New Territories I have come upon a very curious and interesting fact. It is this. Under the Treaty signed at Nanking on the 29th. August, 1842, and ratified at Hongkong on the 26th. June, 1843, "His Majesty the Emperor of China cedes to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc., the island of Hongkong, to be possessed in perpetuity by Her Britannic Majesty, her feirs and Successors, and to be governed by such laws and regulations as Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc., shall see fit to direct". But in the Letters Patent of the 5th. April, 1843, erecting the Island of Hongkong into a separate Colony and providing for its Government, the following passage:- "We,......do hereby erect, Our Island of
Hon kong and its Dependencies, situate between 22′′. 91 and 22°. 21' Worth Latitude, and 114°. 6' and 114°. 18' Fast Longitude from the
Meridian of Greenwich, into a separate Colony, and the said Island and its Dependencies is hereby erected into a separate Colony accordingly, to be known and designated as the Colony of Hongkong".
I have had the lines of latitude and longitude, as stated in the Letters Patent of 5th. April, 1843, shown on the attached map (in envelope); and it will at once be noticed that the southern boundary, Lat. 22°. 9' N., coincides with the boundary line of the New Territories as fixed by the Convention signed at Peking on the 9th. June, 1898, and ratified in London on the 6th.
August, 1898: that it includes Lamma and Pu-toi islands on the south; that the whole of the approaches to Lyemun Pass are included on the East, and that on the north the boundary practically followS the ridge of the hills above the Kowloon peninsula.
On the other hand the same map on which the old Col- -ony is shown tinted red clearly shows that in practice, before the Convention of 1898, the boundaries of the Colony as described in the Letters Patent of 1643 were not recognised; and the same fact is apparent from the action taken in executing the deed of
lease, dated the 20th. March, 1860, and ratified by the Convention
signed