COPY.
Chief Justice's Chambers,
Melbourne,
Victoria.
18th October 1946.
The Right Honourable Ernest Bevin, M.P.,
Foreign Office,
Whitehall, London.
Dear Mr. Bevin,
I have been observing with interest and concern the propaganda with respect to the return of Hong Kong to China. I happened to read the following in "The World To-day", the Chatham House Review for September 1946, p. 415:-
"By the Treaty of Aigun, signed with China
in 1858, Russia secured all the territory on the north bank of the Amur and navigation rights on the Amur River itself. Further Russian territorial expansion was brought about by the Peking Convention of 1860, which gave her the territory east of the Ussuri River down to the Korean border (afterwards known as the
Primorsk province) and including the future site of Vladivostok.'
I suggest for your consideration that if Great Britain is to give up Hong Kong, Russia by parity of reasoning might be invited to give up
Vladivostok and the other territory which she has obtained by treaty with China.
The retention of Hong Kong under British control
in/