W.
In any further communication on this subject, please quote
No. 1785/1785/10
and address-
not to any person by name,
but to
The Under-Secretary of State,"
Foreign Office,
London, S.W.1.
2
Sir,
62723
3
34
FOREIGN OFFICE,
S.K.1.
25th April, 1929.
I am directed by Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain
to state that he has had under consideration the despatch
from the Governor of Hongkong and the memorandum recording
the result of a meeting held in Hongkong on the 5th February
last to consider the question of the land leases in the
New Territories of Hongkong, forming enclosures to Colonial
Office letter No. 62723/29 of the 9th April.
2. It appears that the present practice in regard to
such leases is to grant a lease for seventy five years as
from the 1st July 1898 with option of renewal for twenty
four years less three days. Sir Cecil Clementi now
proposes to abstain from making any voluntary alteration
in this practice but, in cases where the prospective lessee
is dissatisfied with so short a term, to grant a lease
for a period extending beyond the term for which the
New Territories are leased to His Majesty's Government.
3. Sir Austen Chamberlain regrets that Sir C. Clementi's
suggestions, contained in paragraph 6 of the memorandum
under reference, as to possible ways of meeting hostile
propaganda which the adoption of the new policy might give
rise to, do not in any way meet the objections to the grant
of leases extending beyond the term laid down in the
The Under Secretary of State,
Colonial Office.
Convention