CO537-3706 — Page 17

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arrangements proposed by the Chinese Government for a Garden of Remembrance are unacceptable and their original proposal for a park under (b) above has already been turned down. We are therefore left with the Consulate compound proposal. No.146 on this file indicates that this proposal might be acceptable to the Chinese in principle. But it seems doubtful whether they would also accept the conditions necessary to meet the points raised by the Governor and the Ambassador in Nos.109, 171 and 173. Indeed, when it comes to the point, the Chinese Government might well object to the proposal itself, on the ground that it involves relinquishing their claim to jurisdiction as of right,

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which is no doubt a matter of the first importance with them, the Consulate-General, with our conditions attached, would be no more attractive than the Garden of Remembrance with a joint Committee controll- ing it, which they have already rejected. Apart from the very considerable doubts as to whether it is worth while putting forward the Consulate-General proposal as a possible solution, there is our own position to consider.

(2e home)

Mr. Wallace and I feel that we, have done as much as we reasonably can without getting into a false position in our relations with the Chinese Government, and that we should now tell the Chinese that the Garden of Remembrance proposal with the compromise joint Committee and the other arrangements originally proposed by us represents in our view

a most fitting solution to this problem, that we, for our part, feel that this is the utmost we can propose without prejudice to our position in and responsibilities for the New Territories, and that unless, therefore, the Chinese Government can see their way to accept our proposal, there seems no alternative but to refer the question of jurisdiction within the area which was situated within the Old Walled City of Kowloon to an international Court.

Ph.

In conversation with Mr. Scarlett of the Foreign Office I mentioned to him that Mr. Wallace and I had provisionally reached the above purely personal conclusions. Mr. Scarlett was disposed to agree, and thought that it might be worth while getting an opinion from the Legal Adviser on the suggestion that we should propose to the Chinese that the matter should be referred to an international Court of Justice.

otr

I agree that this might be worth while and if you also agree, I suggest that the file might be passed to Mr. Roberts-Wray. The documents flagged on the files below will, I hope, enable him to reach a conclusion on the question whether there would be any strong objection, from the legal aspect, to our referring to the alternative of a reference to the international court, in our next approach to the Chinese, as proposed above.

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