}
In effect the advice is the International Court. advice, but I presume we
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don't take the case to We may not like this shall have to take it.
2. Reference para. 205(c) Colonial Office Code of Procedure. The Foreign office are arranging for the reference to the Law Officers and for ther opinion to be printed.
3. The Governor of Hong Kong's views on the Chinese compromise proposal communicated to him at (249/50) have also just come in. They are at (253). The Governor has reacted as we expected. He rejects the compromise proposal as weak (which it is) and would prefer to risk submitting the case to the International Court (but he does not of course know how big, according to the Law Officers, this risk is).
4. If, as I think it must be, the decision is now that H.M.G. will not take the initiative in submitting the case to the International Court, we must tell the Governor so. In doing so, we should give the reasons for the decision as fully as possible, for the Governor is not going to be pleased by it. We cannot copy the Law Officers' opinion to him, but we can quote from it prefaced by the words "I am advised that
(He will incidentally
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know who has given the advice since we told him in (249/50) that the Law Officers opinion was being sought). I suggest we quote fairly extensively.
5. I am wondering whether we should give the Ministry of Defence a copy of the Law Officers opinion. They have referred the Chinese compromise proposal to G. H. Q. FARELF (247) and (251) and it is probable that the military reaction will be as fierce as the Governors. So the Ministry of Defence will not take kindly to any decision which may indicate the desirability of compromise and will need pretty strong reasons to satisfy them that such a decision is necessary. So, if permissible, I would sent them a copy of the opinion, even though they did not receive a copy of the reference to the Law Officers.
6.
Even though we abandon all intention of taking the case to Court, we need not necessarily make this clear to the Chinese. The Ambassador has expressed the opinion (last sentence of 194) that the Chinese would prefer to avoid such a reference themselves.
7. We now have to consider what to do next. And what we must do pretty soon is to reply to the Chinese compromise proposal. If we don't accept it, we must suggest an alternative.
The Chinese compromise proposal has very obvious objections. It involves a partial surrender of jurisdiction and, even if the Chinese wanted to work it reasonably, it would be difficult to work. The Governor in (253) expresses himself strongly against it.
I