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Cypher/OTP

DEPARTMENTAL.

FROM NANKING TO FOREIGN OFFICE.

Sir R. Stevenson.

No. 49.

16th January, 1948.

Repeated to Hong Kong.

IMMEDIATE.

LIGHT.

D. 9.45 a.m. 16th January, 1948.

R. 10.35 a.m. 16th January, 1948.

Addressed to Foreign Office telegram No. 49 of January 16th, repeated to Hong Kong.

My telegram No. 48

Kowloon.

Vice President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs dined with me last night. I took the opportunity of discussing the Kowloon question with them on a purely personal basis.

2. I took the line that there were certain questions of principle, apart from that of jurisdiction over which we could not give way. These were, firstly, the responsibility of the Hong Kong Government, to 800,000 inhabitants of the area to protect them against the risk of fire and disease; and secondly the responsibility of the Government of Hong Kong for maintenance of public order. These were two principles which the Chinese Government could not refuse to recognize. On the Chinese side there was claim to jurisdiction, which we did not accept, but which they maintain as a hard and fast principle. In these circumstances could we not come to an agreement by which the principle in dispute (that of jurisdiction) was not pressed by either side?

3. My personal suggestion was that His Majesty's Government and the Chinese Government would agree by an exchange of notes, or by some other convenient means, that area of the ancient walled city should be transformed into a public park for the benefit of the inhabitants of the whole area of Kowloon locality (this would I admit only [ ? omission] question of jurisdiction, but Chinese will certainly not give [grp. undec. ? way] on it and the only alternative would seem to be a reference to intemational arbitration). The Chinese Government would publicly advise persons evicted from the area to accept alternative accommo- dation offered to them; thus by implication reflecting their acceptance of the view that the Hong Kong Government in clearing the walled city of Squ.. were acting in the interests of the inhabitants of the whole area. (Minister for Foreign Affairs has already publicly expressed this view,

(8) ~ 4) fie see my telegram to Hong Kong 545 of 1947).

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Government of

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