CO537-3706 — Page 89

for a Garden of Remembrance.

4.

Whichever of the above alternatives

Chinese

is adopted, question arises whether we should

indicate to the Chinese that if they wished

to take their claim to jurisdiction to the

International Court at The Hague, we should

be agreeable, on the understanding that they

would accept the necessity for any administra-

tive measures on the part of the Hong Kong

Government that might be necessary within

the area pending submission of the question

to the International Court and would take

active steps to ensure that such measures

were not made the subject of public

agitation in China.

5. The possible_objections to our

mentioning the International Court to the

Chinese are doubts as to the strength of

our case on purely legal grounds and the

possibility that the Chinese might adopt.

the same line as the Guatemalans have done

over the case of British Honduras, and

suggest that the Court should deal with the

question on its merits as well as on the

purely legal aspect, although such a

suggestion might not in fact prove to be

contrary to our interests.

On the other

hand a reference to the International Court

seems to offer the only hope of an eventual

solution and, what is perhaps more important,

of reaching a position in the meantime where

administrative action can be taken with

some assurance that it will not be made the

subject of artificially inspired agitation

in China. There is also the point that if

we refer to the possibility of going to the

International