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187

MA

1348

I

INWARD TELEGRAM

TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES, AMENDED COPY (correctione = underlined)

Cypher (0.T.P.)

X XI j

FROM HONG KONG (912 A. Grantham}

IMPORTANT

BA JA

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D. 6th Maron, 1948. R. 5th

WED IN

09.40 hrs.

No. 259 Secret.

Addressed to 9.

Repeated to British Ambassador, Menking (?No.59).

Nanking

7.0

184

184

109

62

Popsiya ofrion telegram to Hang No. 229

repeated to Hong Kong as No.115.

Kowloon City.

Proposal to set aside an area for office me Special Commissioner is acceptable only if the area in question is leased by "Authorities of leased territories Xowlcon" So Chinese Government da terme which could be entirely nominal, On any other conditions, hoverez small the erde reserved for Special Commissioner's house, proposal remains open to all the objections stressed in my telegram No. 147 (repeated to Nanking as No.44) and ray telegram No.80 (repeated to Nanking as No.26), I am accordingly very strongly against any compromise on this fundamental issue.

•

If the Chinese press this proposal to the limit, I suggest the possibility of proposing that we in our turn set aside similar area within the Walled City for the construction of a Polioa Station. A new Police Station somewhere in the vicinity of Kowloon City 14, in fact, scheduled to be built in the immediate future, and the elbe might well be placed in Kowloon City itself.

2243. Issue raised in paragraph 3 of Fansing telegram No. to Foreign Office seons also fundamental from the

A practical point of view, If there is to be no (repeat no) publio indication that the laws of Hong Kong apply by mitual agreement to the Garden, I cannot see how the aree la to be administered, however wholeheartedly Chins may agree in private that these laws do no apply. However trifling his offence within the area in question, the first man to be summonead before a Megistrate would plead es was pleaded by two men now in gaol, that he did not recogni.se or acknowledge the juriadletion of the Court. He would bo Justified by their lond silence in assuming that he still had the support of the Chinese Authorities in this, According to the position taken by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in peragraph 3 of the Absesador'a telegram, Chinese Authorities could not (repeat not) publicly disown this stand, and, indeed, would probably have to support it in derance of the position which the Minister for Foreign Affairs has categorically stated. Fact that China privately agreed that Hong Kong Court could exercise jurisdiction would be of absolutely co use in coping with the resulting press campaign which would very quickly bring us back, in an exaggerated form, to the very position from which we are at present struggling to escape.