[This_Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Governmen
CHINA TRADE.
CONFIDENTIAL.
(7110]
No. 1.
613
0. 8857
[February 22
TRECE SECTION 12 MAR 09
(No. 58.) Sir,
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.—(Received February 22.)
Peking, February 3, 1909. WITH reference to my despatch No. 557 of the 11th December, 1908, I have the honour to transmit to you herewith copy of a further despatch which I have received from His Majesty's Consul-General at Canton on the subject of the use of morphia in the manufacture of anti-opium pills in that city.
have, &c.
(Signed)
Inclosure 1 in No. 1.
Acting Consul-General Fox to Sir J. Jordan.
J. N. JORDAN.
(No. 4.) Sir,
Canton, January 16, 1909. IN continuation of my despatch No. 65 of the 23rd November, 1908, on the subject of the use of morphia in the manufacture of anti-opium pills in Canton, I have the honour to inclose for your information copy and translation of a Proclamation recently issued by direction of the Governor-General of the Liang Kwang.
I have, &c. (Signed) HARRY H. FOX. P.S.-A copy and translation of this Proclamation have been sent to the Governor of Hong Kong.
H. H. F.
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
Proclamation forbidding the Use of Morphia in Anti-opium Remedies.
(Translation.)
PROCLAMATION issued by Hu, Financial Commissioner, and Wang, Taotai of Constabulary for the Province of Kwang Tung, in obedience to instructions from the Viceroy of the Two Kwang :—
The Viceroy has received a telegram from the Wai-wu Pu to the effect that the British Minister had presented a Memorandum embodying a Report from the British Consul-General at Canton on the use of norphia in anti-opium remedies. The Consul-General in his Report stated that, although most of the shops at which these medicines were obtainable had notices posted up outside declaring explicitly that the pills sold by them had been "inspected and examined" by the Kuan I Chü, yet all of them contained morphia. He had obtained six different samples of these pills, which he had sent to the Governor of Hong Kong with a request that he would instruct the Government analyst to furnish a report on them.
The result of the analysis proved that not one of the samples was free from morphia, quantities varying from one thirty-seventh to one-seventh of a grain being detected in each pill.
The Governor of Hong Kong, in his reply to the Consul-General, remarked that if the sale of such remedies was officially countenanced the assurances of the Chinese Government of their determination to stamp out the drug were meaningless, and it practically amounted to the substitution and sanction of one form of the opium habit instead of another. He expressed great curiosity as to whether the provincial high authorities were cognizant of the sale of such pills, and as to the nature of the analysis to which they were subjected by the Kuan I Chü.
[2144 y-2]
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