SCR 9/4841/52 II
CONFIDENTIAL
January 9th, 1967.
RECEIVED 1.!
ARCHIVES
17 Jkis...
HWB 4/1
The villagers from Lo Fong, just across the border,
are making a nuisance of themselves again, in a rather different way.
I enclose a copy of a police report dated 31st December which sets out the facts.
2.
The basic point is that the villagers farm fields on our side of the border, and, we gather, frequently drive water buffaloes across by way of an old stone slab bridge and a gap which they have "maintained" in the frontier fence. They use this gap because the Lo Fong gate in the fence is too narrow for water buffoloes. Recently a Public Works team examined the gap and proposed that the fence be repaired. The villagers made it fairly clear that there was little point in doing so since they would open up the gap again straightaway. Public Works Department on their own initiative decided to repair the fence but to widen the gate from 2' 6" to 5'. This they did between 21st and 25th December, to the apparent satisfaction of all.
3.
On 21st December, Lo Fong villagers were seen to be measuring the width of the Shum Chun river. (At this point, our frontier fence has been established some yards south of the river although technically British territory runs to the north bank of the river.) Subsequently quantities of stone, gravel, wood and cement were placed on both sides of the river. We have heard indirectly that the villagers propose to build a new bridge and small dam. We have no practical objection to either construction, although we shall make sure that the dam does not interfere with the irrigation water supply of farmers on our side of the border.
4.
The point of this letter is to suggest that you might like to take a suitable opportunity of drawing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' attention to the Lo Fong villagers' activities and say
P. Cradock, Esq.,
Office of H.M. Charge d'Affaires,
PEKING.
/that
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