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authorities a tracing of the limits of territorial waters so defined.
We have now been asked, firstly, whether in our view the opinion expressed in 1937 could still be maintained, and secondly, whether in that event the Hong Kong Interpretation Ordinance should in our view be amended.
It does not appear that the Interpretation Ordinance was before our Legal Advisers' Department when they expressed in 1937 the opinion referred to in the preceding paragraph, and that Ordinance clearly proceeds from a different view. As it seems, however, that the relevant part of the Ordinance was not drafted after mature consideration by the Departments concerned, our Legal Advisers Department still consider that their 1937 opinion can be maintained. In re-affirming their
previous opinion, they have not overlooked that provision in the Convention which reads:
"The area leased to Great Britain, as shown on the annexed map, includes the waters of Mirs Bay and Deep Bay, but it is agreed that Chinese vessels of war, whether neutral or otherwise, shall retain the right to use those waters." This provision can be explained consistently with the 1937 opinion, for these are bays whose entry is less than ten miles wide and therefore ones which, accepting the ten mile rule for the openings of bays were Chinese internal waters before the lease. Accordingly Chine could lease them to us and she did. This is not to say that that is really how the provision was regarded in 1898, when for all that appears the view taken may have been in accordance with the Hong Kong Ordinance, but it is a position which is defensible in law.
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In/