OUTWARD TELEGRAM
En clair
F.860/154/10.
No. 04.
POLITICAL.
FROM FOREIGN OFFICE TO NANKING.
24th January, 1948. D. 5.50 p.m. 24th January, 1948. Repeated to Hongkong via C.0.
IMMEDIATE.
Addressed to Nanking telegram No. 64
of 24th January, repeated for information to Hongkong.
Following is text of note dated 24th January, which has been addressed to the Chinese Ambassador concerning Kowloon.
[Begins].
Your Excellency,
I have the honour to refer to the representations which Your Excellency has recently made to me concerning the eviction of the squatters from the former walled city of Kowloon. Your Excellency's Minister Counsellor was good enough to leave at the Foreign Office on the 13th January an aide-memoire setting out four points to which he drew special attention.
As Your Excellency is aware, the Chinese Government and His Majesty's Government hold divergent views about the question of jurisdiction over the so called walled city of Kowloon and I do not propose to discuss these in this Note. I would however point out that, except for the period of Japanese occupation from 25th December 1941 to September 1945, the Hong Kong Government have in fact exercised sole jurisdiction over the six and a half acres in question uninterruptedly from 1899 down to the present day, a period of nearly fifty years.
The facts in the recent incident must be considered against the above background, and I should like to set them out shortly for Your Excellency's information.
The area concerned was formerly occupied by about sixty five Chinese who during 1935 to 1937 were moved into alternative improved quarters by the Hongkong Government, voluntarily except in three or four cases. On the liberation of Hongkong, by His Majesty's forces, it was found that the Japanese had pulled down the surrounding walls to provide materials for the Kaitak airfield, and that squatters had occupied the area, and erected huts thereon. From the point of view. of the community at large the area,
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