CO537-4800 — Page 52

CONFIDENTIAL

FOREIGN OFFICE, S.W.1.

8th September, 1949.

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Indian fick betham,

As I said in our telephone conversation to-day, our Legal Adviser agrees generally with the opinion expressed by your own Legal Adviser and quoted by you in your letter 53852/49 of the 1st September about sovereignty over the Leased Territories at Kowloon. At the same time, he points out that previous authorities on the subject are not numerous and that we are not on very firm ground. If you will refer to the joint submission of the Kowloon City case to the Law Officers of the Crown by our two Departments in 1948 (under our reference F 6995/154/10 of 14th May, 1948) you will see that the question of sovereignty was touched on in paragraphs 25 and 26. So far as the present problem is concerned, the important conclusion is that "theoretical discussion does not carry the matter very far, but that in an international lease there is an actual transfer of jurisdictional rights such as a government exercises over its own territory."

Since we had an adverse opinion from the Law Officers with regard to jurisdiction over the Walled City of Kowloon, I wonder whether it is really wise to allow ourselves to be drawn into a debate on the subject of rights

J. B. Sidebotham, Esq., C.M.G.,

COLONIAL OFFICE.

in/