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"In my opinion these evils will be sufficiently guarded against if organs of Chinese administration are made aware of the names of persons registered at Dutch consulates in China; for the organs in question will then know that they should treat persons so registered as Dutch subjects.
For the time being my Government is willing to agree that the names of all those who have registered themselves at Dutch consulates in China should be communicated by me to your Excellency's Government, once in each year on a date subsequent to the month of March, and that they should be communicated by the consuls to the officials at the place at which they are stationed, with whom they have relations. Hereafter, whenever Chinese who have assumed Dutch nationality return to China and report to the Dutch consuls, I and the consuls will send in a communication as occasion requires. I trust that your Excellency will favour me with a reply in order that action may be taken as proposed."
In reply, I have the honour to state that the procedure proposed by your Excellency has, as its object, the exercise of care in the matter of nationality and the avoidance of trouble, an object which has the warm concurrence of this Ministry. Communications are being addressed to the local authorities throughout the provinces to take note thereof and to carry out enquiries into the matter from time to time.
APPENDIX IV.
Nationality of Chinese domiciled in Hong Kong, Kowloon, and Kowloon Extension at the time of their Cession to the British Crown.
THE island of Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain, and immediately occupied, in January 1841, by the preliminary agreement which brought our first war with China to a close. The cession was formally confirmed by article 3 of the Treaty of Nanking of 1842. Captain Elliot, the British plenipotentiary, on taking possession in 1841, issued two proclamations, the first declaring that "Chinese resorting there shall be governed by the laws and customs of China, every descrip- tion of torture being excepted," and the second announcing that "all native persons residing therein must understand that they are now subjects of the Queen of England, to whom and to whose officers they must pay duty and obedience.
""
The opinion of Mr. Alabaster, Acting Attorney-General of Hong Kong in 1911, was that the inhabitants who remained in Hong Kong became British subjects but did not lose their Chinese nationality. The island at that time was a barren rock with a shifting population of a few poverty-stricken fishermen.
British Kowloon, consisting of a small strip on the mainland opposite Hong Kong, was leased to Sir Harry Parkes on behalf of the British Government on the 20th March, 1860, at an annual rental of 500 taels, on the ground that it consisted "for the most part of barren hills that cannot be cultivated and has hitherto formed a place of resort for thieves and outlaws." On the 24th October, 1860, by the Convention of Peking, the lease was cancelled and, with a view to the main- tenance of law and order in and about the harbour of Hong Kong," the area was ceded to Great Britain "as a dependency of the colony of Hong Kong. This was
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followed by a proclamation declaring that "no officer of the Emperor of China has any right or title to exercise authority or control therein or in connection therewith, but that the Government is now, and from henceforth will remain, vested in Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and her officers duly appointed and subject to such laws and regulations as Her Majesty, with the advice of her Privy Council, may ordain and direct.
On these facts Mr. Alabaster was of opinion that the native inhabitants of Kowloon had not become British subjects at all, but had remained subjects of the Emperor of China.
The area known as the Kowloon Extension or the New Territories was leased to Great Britain for a term of ninety-nine years by a convention signed at Peking on the 9th June, 1898; the relevant clauses of this convention stated as follows:-
Whereas it has for many years past been recognised that an extension of the Hong Kong territory is necessary for the proper defence and protection of the colony, it has now been agreed between the Government of Great Britain
+
}