at No!
Orig. on 54145/10/6
238
Extract from a letter dated 19th April, 1948, from Mr. Beckett of the Foreign Office to Mr. Roberts-Wray.
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It may seem to the Law Officers, as it seemed to me at first sight, but I have not discussed the matter with anybody, that we ought to have at least one more effort to prevent the attempts at compromise breaking down. There is this little area of only a few acres and we have already agreed that it should be turned into a memorial park, that the land should be vested in two trustees and that water etc. should be supplied by the British authorities of the leased territory. The attempts at compromise broke down on the question of jurisdiction over crimes and offences committed, as they might be committed, in this new memorial park. The Chinese Ambassador put up a proposal to us which virtually meant that the jurisdiction should be Chinese and we, I think quite rightly, rejected it, but it occurs to me that he probably expected that that proposal would be rejected just as, on the Chinese side, they would reject a solution which implied that the jurisdiction was wholly British. But is there a half-way house to settle this rather small question which now arises at a time when the period of the lease has just over half expired? Would it be possible, for instance, to propose that we and the Chinese should jointly designate some person to exercise as judge jurisdiction over these cases? If so, a further question should be, who should be so designated and what law should be applied? On the first point, would it be practicable to suggest that the person designated should be a lawyer possessing both British and Chinese
/nationality
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