CO129-302 - Public Offices - 1900 — Page 31

ļ

tion on this subject, please quote

M/429

and address letter to-

The Secretary,/

Admiralty, Whitehall,

C.O.

Admiralty,

4971

London, S.W.

Rec

&

15 FEB 00

18th February 1900.

22

Sir,

b b

J

My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have had under consideration your letter of 9th January, 180/1900, forwarding correspondence which has taken place as to the

under ownership of the foreshore of Mirs Bay and Deep Bay, the convention between this Country and China respecting an extension of the territory of the Colony of Hong Kong (signed at Peking on 9th June 1898), and enquiring whether, from an Imperial point of view, their Lordships would wish the British claim to the foreshore pressed.

2. My Lords observe that the Law Officers of the Crown consider that the convention gives to Her Majesty the right to the whole foreshore in these Bays, and they desire me to request you to state to Mr Secretary Chamberlain that, in their opinion, the foreshores should be regarded as British, and that the Chinese Government should have no power to grant leases on any

portion of them.

3. Whether the question should be raised at the present time is, in their Lordships' opinion, a matter of policy on which they are not prepared to offer an opinion, but they consider it essential that there should be no doubt as to the claim of Great Britain to the foreshores, should the question ever arise.

e Under Secretary of State,

COLONIAL OFFICE, S.W.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient Servant.

Ear