whether any use could be made of paragraph 3 of Sir H. Knatchbull Hugesson's telegram No.135 of the 8th May, 1937 (copy sent to us under cover of F 2683/221/10 of the 11th May 1937) in which the Ambassador reported that the Minister for Foreign Affairs had expressed agreement with his remark that the matter. (that is the eviction of the residents in Kowloon City) did not seem worth a major dispute.
6. The foregoing was drafted before you told me of the proposal to seek the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown on the strength of our legal position. You kindly said that you thought that it would nevertheless be useful for you to have our views on our next communication to the Chinese Government. I would like, if I may, to suggest that, in order to save time later on, we might be proceeding with the consideration of the terms of this communication while the matter is under reference to the Law Officers. For this purpose we might perhaps assume that, since the Chinese Government have made it so plain that nothing less than jurisdiction will satisfy them, we shall have to make some mention of the International Court in the communication.
When I told our legal people here of the proposal to refer the question to the Law Officers, they said they would very much like to see the reference in draft form. You will recall that I raised this point
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