24
these were the limits of territorial
waters which we claimed.
5 It is clear that this pre-war
decision has been lost sight of in Hong Kong
and that at present they purport to exercise
jurisdiction in the whole of the waters
defined in the 1911 Ordinance. The question
therefore arises whether the 1937 decision
should be re-imposed and I should be grateful
for your views on this point.
密 As it happens, the present
circumstances in Hong Kong are not disimilar to
those obtaining in 1937 and there is again
the possibility of incidents (arising perhaps
from the irregular use of Hong Kong waters by
Chinese Nationalist warships or later by
Chinese Communist vessels) in which our claim to
exercise jurisdiction beyond the customary
three mile limit would be challenged. Our
preliminary view therefore is that it will
more fol. he
be better to limit the exercise of
jurisdiction, as in 1937, to those waters
which we could certainly claim to be
territorial.
find
6. If such a decision is taken the further
question arises whether it would be advisable,
besides limiting jurisdiction in practice,
to make public the new limits of territorial
waters which we claim and to amend the local
Interpretation Ordinance to conform with them.
It would certainly seem that unless the limits
claimed were known to all concerned the risk
of incidents would remain and if the
Interpretation Ordinance were not amended
difficulty