CO537-3706 — Page 127

OUTWARD TELEGRAM

Cypher/OTP Confidential

No. 184

POLITICAL DISTRIBUTION

FROM FOREIGN OFFICE TO NANKING

D. 4.00 p.m. 27th February, 1948

27th February, 1948.

150

Repeated to Hong Kong (via Colonial Office)

IMMEDIATE

CONFIDENTIAL

Addressed to Nanking telegram No. 184 of February 27th repeated for information to Hong Kong.

My telegram No. 154: Kowloon.

174

The Chinese Ambassador called on me on 26th February, to raise the question of Kowloon City. He informed me that his Government now accepted our proposal for the establishment of a Garden of Remembrance. They further agreed that the police, waterpower and electricity for the Garden should be supplied by the Kowloon leased territory. They wished, however, to entrust the administration of the Garden to a Board of Management consisting of seven members five of whom would be nominated by the Mayor of Kuangtung, and two of whom would be representatives of the Kowloon Teased territory.

2. I told the Ambassador that, in our view, this proposal of the Chinese Government for unequal represen- tation on the Board of Management was an indirect attempt to establish the principle of Chinese jurisdiction over Kowloon City. Our object in putting forward this proposal had been to clear up an area which was a slum and an eyesore, and to establish there a Garden commemorating the Allied dead, the control of which should not prejudice in any way our respective claims to the jurisdiction of the City.

3.

His Excellency said that it was also the under- standing of the Chinese Government that the question of jurisdiction was not prejudiced by the present proposal. I pointed out in reply that the Chinese Government were in effect proposing to admit two members of the Kowloon Administration to the Board of Management as if by an act of grace.

If we accepted this arrangement it would look as if we were admitting the principle of Chinese jurisdic- tion, and this we were not prepared to do. I told the Ambassador that, although I had not yet obtained your views on this proposal, I would be prepared to agree to the constitution of the Management Committee composed of three representatives nominated by the Chinese and three representatives of the Kowloon Administration. chairmanship of the Committee could then alternate between the two sides.

The

4. The Ambassador emphasised that although His Majesty's Government had exercised de facto jurisdiction over Kowloon for a considerable time, the general mass of the Chinese people still regarded Kowloon as Chinese territory. If we now pressed our desire for equal representation on the Committee, the Chinese Goverment would find it difficult to explain its apparent loss of

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