REOCCUPYING HONG KONG.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 235, 3 September 1945, Page 4

REOCCUPYING HONG KONG.

One hundred and three years after Hong- Kong was ceded to Great Britain by China under the Treaty of Nanking on August 27. 1842, marking the close ol the

“Opium War,” a strong British naval force entered the port to reoccupy the Crown Colony which the Japanese seized on December 25, 1941. Hong Kong has been called the “Gibraltar of the East,” an appropriate designation. Just as Gibraltar dominates the entrance to the Mediterranean, so does Hong Kong in peacetime commercially dominate the entrance to the China Sea. Like Gibraltar, Hong Kong lies in immediate contiguity to the mainland of a foreign Power. It- has the same physical aspects—a rocky height rising abruptly from the sea with the town at the foot of its slopes. Along the northern shore the city of Victoria stretches for about four miles, and between the ' town and the mainland is one of the finest and most picturesque harbours in the world, with a waterway of about ten miles. As the promontory of Kowloon, directly opposite the island, was ceded to Britain in 1860 by the Convention of Pekin, Britain has, except for the period of Japanese occupation, held command of both sides of Hong Kong’s harbour. Not only has Hong Kong been of great importance to Britain as a naval base- in the past, but it has also been a commercial centre having a wide influence for good upon a large area of China, encouraging trade between the great city of Canton and the outside world. The arrival of the British naval vessels in preparation for the act of surrender by the Japanese is a token of Britain’s intention to recover and retain the rights which she held in Hong Kong. There have been some suggestions that Britain’s pre-war position at Hong Kong may be challenged when the questions to be decided under the peace terms for Japan are dealt with, but there appears to be no sound reason why Britain should not continue to hold the colony, which she has developed not only in her own but also in China’s interests.