57T45/16/48. PART 11.
PRIORITY.
SAVING
From the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
283-4
To the officer Administering the Government of HONG KONG.
Repeated to
Commissioner-General, SOUTH EAST ASIA.
H.H.B. Ambassador NANKING,
NO.200
NO. 51 SAVING.
SAVING.
Date 10th, September, 1948.
SECRET.
1.
Your telegram No. 782,
Kowloon City.
i.
Conclusion that reference to the International Court should be avoided was based on advice as follows:
This dispute arises out of a provision in the Convention dated 9th June, 1898, between Great Britain and China respecting an extension of Hong Kong territory. The provision relates to the exercise of jurisdiction in Kowloon City and the issue turns upon the extent to which, upon its true interpretation, this provision retains for China the right to exercise jurisdiction within the walled City of Kowloon in the circumstances which have supervened from the date of the making of this Convention.
In seeking the proper meaning to be attributed to this provision, it is thought of importance to bear in mind the nature and extent of the territory to which the provision zelates and the population resident in Kowloon City at the time when the Convention was made. It appears that Kowloon City was at that time an enclosed uree, surrounded by a stone wall forming as nearly as possible a parallelogram measuring 700 feet by 400 feet. It had at that time a total Chinese population ofabout 744 persons the garrison amounting to 544 and the civilian population to 200. The civilian population was dependent upon the military and, eccording to a report dated 8th October, 1898, by Mr. Stewart Lockhart, the civilian population would be sure to follow if the military were to remove. The Chinese officials stationed within Kowloon City at the time of the Convention were (with the exception of one civil officer, a deputy magistrate) military officers; the head of whom was the Colonel-in-Command. This officer was chief military officer in the district of San On, now known as Po. On. Hie jurisdiction was purely military in character, extending over the whole district of San On and the islands adjacent thereto. The garrison under the command of thie Colonel was maintained for the defence of the district of San On, and the adjacent islands.
The deputy magistrate resident within the city exercised a somovhat extensive jurisdiction not confined to the city but comprising a. large portion of the arça lessed by the Convention to Great Brita dni. The Chinese Government, in the course of the various communicatione which have passed in relation to Kowloon City, have relied upon the
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