CO129-288 - Public Offices & Others - 1898 — Page 143

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at Kwong-Chau-wan within striking distance, 200 miles,

of this British Possession a tremendous leap Northwards

from the borders of Tonkin.

We also desire to most strongly and emphatically deprecate the retention in our newly leased territory of

any, even the smallest, semblance of Chinese Control,

Jurisdiction, or Administration, on whatever ground it

may be urged. Even in our congratulatory telegram which

is quoted above, this warning note was sounded.

The Mandarins and the Chinese Customs, in which

latter service many of the officers are foreigners and as

such ought not to be permitted to patrol our waters in

launches, should be relegated to the Northern side of

the British Boundary, which, for the reasons hereafter

detailed, should be the parallel of 22° 40′ N., that is

to say, considerably North of a line joining Mirs Bay

and Deep Bay.

In our letter of the 10th January last, we dealt

with the fact of the Kowloon hills dominating our

harbour and also of the surrounding islets offering

shelter for possible enemies, and we demonstrated the

necessity of Great Britain having undisputed and

undivided control of the approaches to this Colony, and

also of the waters of Mirs Bay.

From the Reuter's telegram above referred to it

appears that the waters of Mirs Bay (and of Deep Bay )

are expressly included in the lease to Great Britain, but

we do not consider that such a concession is sufficient,

and we think that it is most unadvisable to draw the

boundary line of our territory so far South as the

proposed line joining Mirs Bay and Deep Bay, because a

bar of the waters of Mirs Bay is useless unless the

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