CO129-604-5 Immigration- control over entry from China 4-3-1948 - 6-1-1949 — Page 58

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consistently asserted the territorial supremacy of the Government of Hong Kong over both Chinese and other aliens was sufficient to keep alive the Government's full power to exclude and deport Chinese. However, it is not necessary to consider this question in detail unless there is reason to think that the immigration and deportation ordinances passed before 1940 were not enforced against Chinese.

Provisionally, then, I am of the opinion that the Chinese have acquired no prescriptive right to enter, or to settle in, Hong Kong at all. But, as I have already explained, it is not clear to me upon what principles of law such a prescriptive right would be based or what conditions would govern the its acquisition and I think that the Foreign Office should be asked to amplify their previous statement on this point and to say whether, in view of the immigration and deportation legislation referred to in this memorandum (which was not previously brought to their notice) they would now agree that the Chinese have acquired no prescriptive right to enter or settle in Hong Kong.

APPENDIX.

Immigration Legislation.

(a) No. 16 of 1844. (rep. No. 18 of 1844).

This provides that all male inhabitants of the Colony of the age of 21 years and, upwards shall present themselves annually at the Registration Office for registration, and empowers the Registrar-General or other authorised officer to prohibit from residing in the Colony any applicant for registration who appears to him to be "a vagabond or bad character or without visible means of subsistence".

(b) No. 18 of 1844 (rep. No. 7 of 1846).

(0)

(a)

This repeals No. 16 of 1844 but reproduces the provisions mentioned in (a) above with the

qualification that a person born in the Colony may not be prohibited from residing therein (s. 3).

No. 5 of 1895 (numbered as No. 3 of 1895 in R.E.1913; rep. No. 25 of 1930).

This empowers the Governor by proclamation to prohibit or regulate "the immigration or importation into the Colony of any Chinese from any port or place where bubonic plague, smallpox or other such disease exists or is prevalent".

No. 33 of 1923 (rep. No. 8 of 1934).

This empowers the Governor in Council to make regulations prohibiting persons from entering the Colony without a passport and generally for controlling the admission of persons to the Colony and provides that the regulations scheduled to the Ordinance shall apply until altered by the Governor in Council. The scheduled regulations (which were amended in 1928 see Government Notification No. 348 of 1928) prohibit persons from entering the Colony without a passport or other approved document establishing identity and nationality and require passports of other than British

/subjects...