CO537-6036 — Page 91

QUI

S.W.

VIRALTY

M.01906/49

Dear Radford,

SECRET

X805

104-5

Military Branch,

Admiralty,

S.W.1.

27th February, 1950

7

Allnigham

You recently sent me a copy of your letter to Coates at the Foreign Office, about the territorial waters of Hong Kong, together with the draft telegram which you are proposing to send to the Governor.

I have only three small modifications to suggest. Firstly I would propose the deletion of the words "as I presume in fact it is" in the last sentence but one of paragraph 2. I should rather have doubted whether juris- diction has been exercised outside the normal limits and in any case the words add nothing, because you are telling him to act as if it had not.

I suggest that the last sentence of paragraph 3 should be amended to read "It would, I consider, only be necessary to make it clear that 'colony' means the land and national waters (including the whole of Deep Bay and Mirs Bay) lying between the boundaries specified and that colonial waters means territorial waters." (I write this without having seen the actual text of the ordnance but it seems to me that is what it must mean)

I suggest that the concluding words of paragraph 4 sound a little cynical and that they might be amended to read ".....the Admiralty Hydrographer, taking account of modifications which H. M. G. have recently made in their method of delineating territorial waters."

I confirm that we shall in due course be making a communication on this subject to C. in C. Far East Station.

R. E. Radford, Esq., Colonial Office.

/I