ん
for
Desf.69
Orig. on 95213/50/49.
Sta
19-4-49
Mins. only.
2
1.
Mr. Sidebotham passed this file to me to look into, since the proposed draft telegram (E) overrules the wishes of the Governor expressed in his telegram No. 1121 of 1948 (c).
2. I remember having some discussion with Mr. Cade when (C) came in, when my first reaction was that we should support the Governor. If there was any upshot of this discussion it will appear on 95213/50A/48 which I have been unable to get hold of. (It is said to be with Mr. Dale, but several efforts to contact Mr. Dale have been unsuccessful).
3. However this may be, at (1) on 54392/49 we have a despatch from the Governor discussing in detail this very question of the tenure of the site of the American Consulate-General in Hong Kong and reporting that in fact the United States Government have already asked that the tenure should be fee simple.
4. The Governor gives reasons why he does not want to be instructed to grant the site in fee simple. Some of these are of reduced cogency if the Governor can be instructed that grants in fee simple are to be restricted to land for Consular premises, but two important ones appear still to remain. First, if land is granted in fee simple, it would be hard to resist similar requests from other Governments. Secondly, the Govenor thinks it is not possible to grant land in fee simple while at the same time imposing a restriction on subsequent sale.
5. The first objection is perhaps not very important, for if grants are limited to land for Consular purposes, the number of grants will ipso facto be very limited. The second objection is, I think, more important. I notice that in paragraph 4 of (D) Sir E. Beckett is recorded as saying that there is nothing in the wording of article 7(1) of the Consular Convention with the U.S.A. which requires that limitations should not be imposed in regard to any subsequent disposal of the property. This may be, but it does not answer the Governor's point (if the Governor is correct) that you cannot impose such a limitation if the grant is in fee simple. (Perhaps Legal Advisers will say whether the Governor is right).
6. It is pretty clear that, if there were no danger of creating a precedent, the Governor would have little objection to this particular grant in fee simple to the Americans, and he would obviously have even less had he seen the text of the Convention and Sir E. Beckett's views in paragraph 4 of (D) and therefore been in a position to know (a) that power of expropriation for purposes of national defence or public utility is expressly reserved and (b), subject to Legal Advisers' views on X above, that there is nothing to stop him from imposing limitations as to subsequent disposal of proper ty. So far as this Consular Convention and the Americans are concerned I think he would be happy enough to go ahead on
this