CONFIDENTIAL.
$8400]
No. 1.
428
[November 22.]
SECTION 1.
Sir Edward Grey to Mr. Whitelaw Reid.
Your Excellency,
ON the 17th ultimo you informed me that you had received instructions to inquire what view His Majesty's Government would take of a Joint Commission or a joint investigation of the opium trade and the opium habit in the Far East to be undertaken by the United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, China, and Japan.
I have now the honour to inform you that His Majesty's Government are willing to take part in such an inquiry if the other Powers named by your Excellency are likewise willing to participate, and if, as regards China, the inquiry extends to the production of opium in China as well as to the import of foreign opium.
I have, &c. (Signed) EDWARD GREY
[2241 y-1]