Colonial Office,
Downing Street,
S. W. 1.
18 October, 1945.
فا
54
4
54145/45
Dear Mr. McVittie,
Thank your for your letter of the 10th of October. We have read the draft paper on the Status of Hong Kong and it appears to us in the main to put forward the various courses of action which have been suggested fairly and objectively.
There are, however, two points of detail in which we suggest it might be expanded.
There is a reference in paragraph 2 to the fact that the only airport of the Colony (Kai Tak) is situated in the New Territories. we have recently had a signal from Hong Kong reporting that Kai Tak is not suited for the type of aircraft which will increasingly use it in future and that the only possible site where a suitable airport could be
constructed is still further within the New Territories. Perhaps a reference to this might be added, as showing still further now closely the New Territories and the rest of the Colony are connected.
Paragraph 12 states that the retrocession of the New Territories to China would raise many difficulties, but does not do more than refer to the embarrassment which would be occasioned to our position in that part of Kowloon which lies within the area ceded by the 1860 Convention, by the lower standards which the
/Chinese
W. W. MCVITTIE, ESQ.