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the narcotics problem I think there would be advantage too in my seeking to enlist the support of the King, As you may know, he is personally most interested in the problems of the hill tribes and has set up various schemes for the encouragement of croo substitution for the opium poppy. I cannot say that any of these schemes so far has been a dazzling success and I suspect that Prince Bhisadej, who runs these schemes for the King, cannot be graded higher than an enthusiastic dilettante. Nevertheless there is the prospect of support from the Royal quarter and although the King's power is constitutionally pretty limited his word nevertheless carries a great deal of weight. I think that if I could arrange for knowledge of our interest to be conveyed to him we would probably find that the Thai bureaucratic machine worked unwontedly smoothly.
5. Other aspects of the report are rather for general than for local consideration but anything that the Hong Kong Government could do to buy some of the substitute crops which the hill tribes are being encouraged to grow would be of great help, particularly if it were possible to enter into forward commitments. This is important for I understand that the absence of an assured and steady market for the substitute crops is one of the impediments, though not the only one, to the wider development of the scheme.
5.
. In his conclusion at paragraph 33(b) Rolph recommends a joint Anglo-American examination of the possibility of buying opium on a "monopoly-preemptive" basis. Preemptive buying may türn out to be necessary but I hope that it would be used only as a last resort, since I am afraid its effect might very well be to encourage increased production of opium. The venality and corruption of Thai bureaucracy might also I am afraid be encouraged. The present official policy is to suppress the poppy and to go in for crop substitution, but if the "rich" foreign governments (and that includes the Government of Hong Kong! went into the business of buying opium many of our worthy Thai friends would feel sorely tempted to abandon their principles and to make what money they could out of it.
7.
I am sending copies of this letter to Duncan Watson (FCO), Edward Willan (Rangoon) and John Lloyd (Vientiane).
Yours eve Arthu
Arthur de la Mare
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