CO129-602-5 Limits of territorial waters 27-10-1949 - 9-12-1949 — Page 26

24

these were the limits of territorial

waters which we claimed.

5 It is clear that this pre-war

decision has been lost sight of in Hong Kong

and that at present they purport to exercise

jurisdiction in the whole of the waters

defined in the 1911 Ordinance. The question

therefore arises whether the 1937 decision

should be re-imposed and I should be grateful

for your views on this point.

密 As it happens, the present

circumstances in Hong Kong are not disimilar to

those obtaining in 1937 and there is again

the possibility of incidents (arising perhaps

from the irregular use of Hong Kong waters by

Chinese Nationalist warships or later by

Chinese Communist vessels) in which our claim to

exercise jurisdiction beyond the customary

three mile limit would be challenged. Our

preliminary view therefore is that it will

more fol. he

be better to limit the exercise of

jurisdiction, as in 1937, to those waters

which we could certainly claim to be

territorial.

find

6. If such a decision is taken the further

question arises whether it would be advisable,

besides limiting jurisdiction in practice,

to make public the new limits of territorial

waters which we claim and to amend the local

Interpretation Ordinance to conform with them.

It would certainly seem that unless the limits

claimed were known to all concerned the risk

of incidents would remain and if the

Interpretation Ordinance were not amended

difficulty