INWARD TELEGRAM
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES
Cypher (0.T.P.)
FOR REGISTRATION
FROM HONG KONG (Sir A. Grantham)
OF
D. 5th March, 1948. R. 5th #
09.40 hrs.
3
184
iMi
IMPORTANT
No. 259 Secret.
!
18
Addressed to 8. of 3.
Repeated to British Ambassador, Nanking (?No.59).
Nanking
Это
228
Foreign Office telegram to Nanking No. (1234),
repeated to Hong Kong as No.115.
Kowloon City.
Proposal to set aside an area for office of Special Commissioner is acceptable only if the erea in question is leased by "Authorities of leased territoriss Kowloon" to local (group omitted) on terms which could be entirely nominal. On any other conditions, however small the area reserved for Special Commissioner's house, proposal remains open to all the objections stressed in my 109 telegram No. 147 (repeated to Nanking as No.44) and my
telegram No.80 (repeated to Nanking as No.26). I am accordingly very strongly against any compromise on this fundamental issue.
62
(184)
2. If the Chinese press this proposal to the limit, I suggest the possibility of proposing that we in our turn set aside similar area within the Walled City for the construction of a Police Station, A new Police Station somewhere in the vicinity of Kowloon City is, in fact, scheduled to be built in the immediate future, and the site might well be placed in Kowloon City itself.
2293. Issue raised in paragraph 3 of Nanking telegram No.234 to Foreign Office seems also fundamental from the practical point of view. If there is to be no (repeat no) publio indication that the laws of Hong Kong apply by mutual agreement to the Garden, I cannot see how the area is to be administered, however wholeheartedly China may agree in private that these las do so apply. However trifling his offence within the area in question, the first man to be summonsed before a Magistrate would plead as VAG pleaded by two men now in geol, that he did not recognise or acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Court. He would be justified by their loud silence in assuming that he still had the support of the Chinese Authorities in this. According to the position taken by the Minister of Foreiga Affairs in paragraph 3 of the Ambassador's telegram, Chinese Authorities could not (repeat not publicly disown this stand, and, indeed, would probably have to support it in defence of the position which the Minister for Foreign Affairs has categorically stated. Fact that China privately agreed that Hong Kong Court could exercise jurisdiction would be of absolutely no use in coping with the resulting press campaign which would very quickly bring us back, in an exaggerated form, to the very position from which we are at present struggling to escape.
A
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