CO537-3705 — Page 89

In the circumstances, we are prepared to agree to your views on all three points, subject to anything further which the Governor of Hong Kong may have to say. I enclose a draft of a telegram which we propose to send to Sir Alexander Grantham. Would you very kindly let me know whether the Foreign Office agree with it?

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Obviously the most important thing is to achieve a settlement of the vexed question of the Chinese claim to jurisdiction within the "Walled City of Kowloon", which will stop the Chinese from using this as a pretext to provoke further incidents in the future. On this you will see from Hong Kong telegram No.115 that the Governor is still opposed to the suggestion made by the Chinese Government both in Nanking and here (note enclosed with Foreign Office compliments slip F.1320/154/10 of the 27th January) that the area should be turned into a public garden containing the Office of Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. The Governor says that any such solution would be interpreted locally as an admission that the Hong Kong Government was in the wrong, and would be regarded as a face-saving gesture by us, and I think we must accept the Governor's views on this point. The Governor goes on to suggest that the idea of the park should now be formally put to the Chinese Govern- ment, with the proposal that it would be called the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park, and that it should be made clear that it would be policed and maintained by the Hong Kong Government. Before, however, communicating with the Chinese Government, we shall have to make up our minds about the suggestion put forward by the Consul-General in Hong Kong telegram No.109 that the

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