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must, we think, be intended to describe the extent of the jurisdiction then exercised. This jurisdiction was complete in the sense that it extended over the whole area of Kowloon City and applied to all the inhabitants, military and civilian, then in Kowloon City. It makes no difference that it was largely military in character, as we think that the expression "Chinese Officials" must include military as well as civilian control. It is to be noted that a Chinese version of the Convention was signed, but we presume that the equivalent Chinese expression bears the same meaning as the English.

If Kowloon had been a great city with a large and varied population subject to different types of local administration, it might have been possible to construe the words in the provision as retaining for China some limited form of jurisdic- tion. They cannot, we think, be so construed in the case of a very small city with a very small population such as Kowloon City, which, at the time of the Convention, was wholly under Chinese administration.

We accordingly are of opinion that the Convention provided that complete Chinese jurisdiction within Kowloon City should remain vested in the Chinese authorities, subject, of course, to military requirements.

In May 1899 the Chinese officials were driven out and the City of Kowloon was incorporated in the leased territory virtually for all purposes, Chinese control thereafter disappearing. We do not think that it could be validly contended on behalf of Great Britain that, by virtue of the doctrine of abandonment or any similar doctrine, the Chinese Government had lost any rights of jurisdiction which they possessed through not being able to reassert jurisdiction in Kowloon City since 1899. Although for a prolonged period after 1900 until 1933 the Chinese Government did not press any claim to exercise jurisdiction in Kowloon City, we do not think it could be said that China acquiesced for a sufficient period to lose any rights she possessed. The expulsion of Chinese officials was never in any sense formally accepted by the Chinese as justifiable or as marking any permanent change in the status of the City, and we feel that mere inaction on the part of China during the period to 1933 cannot be interpreted as such an abandonment of her claim to jurisdiction as would prevent her reasserting it now.

It follows that we do not think it is necessary for China to assert any overriding claim to sovereignty based upon her title as lessor of the territory in question; since in our view the terms of the Convention are appropriate to reserve for her the jurisdiction in Kowloon City she claims.

If this view is right, the only ground upon which Great Britain may validly refuse to allow the Chinese authorities to resume their pre-Convention jurisdiction in Kowloon City would be that military requirements for the defence of Hong Kong preclude the exercise of such a jurisdiction by Chinese officials. We can well understand that the existence of a focal point for the propagation of dissatisfaction with British rule can be of the utmost inconvenience to the British administration of the leased territory of Hong Kong. We observe that it is the opinion of the Chiefs of Staff that it would now be inconsistent with military requirements to accede to the Chinese request to be allowed to resume jurisdiction in Kowloon City. The reasons given in the Minister of Defence's letter dated 5th May, 1948, are to the general effect that Kowloon City might provide a rallying point for Chinese nationalism, from which active measures to return the whole colony to China would be directed, and that, in general, hostility could. be fomented from Kowloon City against the British administration. We would not, of course, presume in any way to question these views; but as a matter of construction of the Convention we think there must be more than mere incon- venience to the administration of a character which, in the event of anticipated military operations, could be promptly suppressed, before it could be said within the meaning of the provision in question that Chinese jurisdiction was inconsistent with the military requirements for the defence of Hong Kong. We think that these words require that there should be some definable military danger or dis- advantage to be anticipated from the presence of Chinese officials in Kowloon. We doubt whether it would be sufficient to say that in the event of a Communist attack, not anticipated as likely to occur in the foreseeable future, Chinese juris- diction in Kowloon City would be a source of danger or embarrassment, particu- larly if the circumstances are that at any moment in such an eventuality the British authorities could terminate the exercise of such jurisdiction by expelling the Chinese officials. The provision does not enable the Chinese authorities in our view to introduce Chinese troops into Kowloon City as a garrison or for any military purpose (other than perhaps, for example, leave or convalescent purposes in limited numbers), and we would have thought that it would be a simple matter in the event of anticipated military operations to expel Chinese officials from

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