the summary record of the meeting in which Mr. Li had originally raised the question was circulated by the Secretariat. In this corrigendum, the remarks attributed to Mr. Li were somewhat altered. He was now reported as saying "if the fact that sovereignty over a territory rested with another State was considered a reason for ceasing to transmit information, then information should cease to be transmitted on Kowloon and the New Territories, as sovereignty over those territories rested in the Republic of China". As the Committee had by then dispersed, there was no further opportunity for reply. I enclose as Annex III to this despatch General Assembly document A/AC.28/S.R.2) Corr. 3, dated the 14th September, 1949, which contains Mr. Li's corrigendum.
4. On the question of sovereignty, the matter is not entirely free from doubt, but I am advised that an
international court would probably hold that during the currency of the lease, His Majesty exercises sovereignty over the leased territories; and that while in strict law the leasing state retains a reversionary property in the territory, that fact does not impair the de facto and de jure sovereignty of His Majesty in the meantime. This is however subject to reservation in regard to the jurisdictional rights in the walled city of Kowloon, (see in this connection my Secret Savingram No. 200 of the 10th September, 1948) and it was not thought possible to instruct the United Kingdom Representative in the Special Committee to make a wholesale denial of Mr. Li's statement regarding sovereignty; moreover, questions of sovereignty are entirely outside the competence of the Special Committee.
5. On the narrower question of the transmission of information to the Secretary-General under Article 73 (e) of the Charter, however, I am advised that there can be no question about the position. The obligations contained in Article 73 are based not on the exercise of sovereignty but on the exercise of administrative responsibility. As the report of the Special Committee was due to be considered by the General Assembly of the United Nations at its current Session, instructions were prepared for the United Kingdom delegation as to the attitude they should adopt should the representative of China repeat in the Fourth Committee or in Plenary Session of the General Assembly the remarks concerning Kowloon and the New Territories which he made in the Special Committee. These instructions were as follows:-
"If this question is reopened in the Fourth Committee, the United Kingdom representative should again reserve his Government's position, indicating that His Majesty's Government will certainly continue to transmit information under Article 73 (e) of the Charter in respect of the New Territories and Kowloon. If he feels it necessary he should draw attention to the precise wording of Article 73 which refers to "Members of the United Nations which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government ....". The article does not raise
/the
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