X?" aletizonent them"
Convention was signed, but we presume that the equivalent
Chinese expression bears the same meaning as the English.
If Kowloon had been a great city with a large and varied
population subject to different types of local administration,
it might have been possible to construe the words in the
provision as retaining for China some limited form of juris-
diction. They cannot, we think, be so construed in the case
of a very small city with a very small population such as
Kowloon City, which, at the time of the Convention, was wholly
under Chinese administration.
We accordingly are of opinion that the Convention pro-
vided that complete Chinese jurisdiction within Kowloon City
X should remain vested in the Chinese authorities, subject, of
course, to military requirements.
in Lay, 1899, the Chinese officials were driven out and
the City of Kowloon was incorporated in the leased territory
virtually for all purposes, Chinese control thereafter
disappearing. we do not think that it could be validly
contended on behalf of Great Britain that, by virtue of the
doctrine of abandonment or any similar doctrine, the Chinese
Government had lost any rights of jurisdiction which they
possessed through not being able to reassert jurisdiction in
Kowloon City since 1899. Although for a prolonged peria
after 1900 until 1933 the Chinese Government did not press any
claim to exercise jurisdiction in Kowloon City, we do not think
it could be said that China acquiesced for a sufficient period
to lose any rights she possessed. The expulsion of Chinese
officials was never in any sense formally accepted by the
Chinese as justifiable or as marking any permanent change in
the status of the City, and we feel that here inaction on the
part of China during the period to 1933 cannot be interpreted
as/