CO537-3702 — Page 121

New Territories.

Various Ordinances, Sanitary and other,

extend the scope of the Urban Council to this area in

disregard of the New Territories Regulation Ordinance.

New Kowloon is defined in the Interpretation Ordinance

as being an area merely subject to the initialling of a

certain map by the Governor. On the other hand the

northern boundary is physically a clear one, namely the

topmost ridge of the Kowloon massif. At its two seaward

ends the delimitation has been elastic in the past, e.g.

ich an extension, by a stroke of the pen, in the Laikok

area was made fairly recently.

5. One important point, possibly "justiciable" if it

came to arbitration, is that, however difficult it may be

to square the retention of the rest of the New Territories

with Article 3 of The Atlantic Charter, the area of New

Kowloon was as barren in 1841 as was the Island of Hong Kong

and that the Article in question is equally inapplicable to

both.

6. While on the subject of the "justiciable" it should

perhaps be mentioned at once that the preamble to the 1898

Lease makes it clear that the sole justification for the

Lease in question was the defence of the Colony proper.

After 1941 and Hiroshima it is not difficult to see how

this point could be argued before a neutral tribunal.

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