11
2
encore de se convaincre par un contrôle minutieux que ces mesures ont été suivies d'un résultat efficace donnant toutes garanties sur la sincérité et la réalité de la suppression de l'opium en Chine.
D'une manière générale les intérêts français en matière d'opium sont bien moins considérables que ceux de l'Angleterre, et ces intérêts étant de même nature, je me propose de conformer mon attitude à celle qui sera adoptée dans la circonstance par le Gouvernement britannique.
Agréez, &c.
S. PICHON,
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majestys Government
41444 [November 29.]
Gro: 24 DFC 09 SECTION 1-
358
CHINA TRADE.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[43633]
No. 1.
India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received November 29.)
Sir,
India Office, November 27, 1909.
I AM directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated the 8th November, 1909, with enclosures, in which Lord Morley's views are invited as to the reply which should be made to the Edinburgh Committee for the suppression of the Indo-Chinese opium traffic.
2. In reply I am to make the following observations :------
Shortening of the Ten Years' Limit.-The committee press for the revision of the ten years' limit on the ground that the Chinese Imperial Government, and some at least in of the provincial viceroys are anxious to suppress the cultivation of the poppy China within a shorter period, and are sanguine from the progress already made that this will be accomplished within the next two years. The sincerity of these aspirations is not questioned. But they have still to be translated into facts. The information laid before the Shanghae Commission showed that China herself was unable to give any satisfactory statistics from which the extent of the reduction in the cultivation of Chinese opium could he inferred.
In the sixth session of the commission Sir Alexander Hosie examined at length the reports and returns which the Chinese delegates had submitted, and carried the commission with him in his conclusion that the Chinese estimates of production, consumption, and reduction were altogether unreliable, while the actual progress up to date was not known with any approach to certainty. The mention made in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Reports for 1908 of the opium crop in the province of Szechuan having "turned out most satisfactorily," of the increased export of native opium from Chung King, and of the decreased import of foreign opium, confirms these criticisms.
The committee appear to be under the impression that the three years of trial were unnecessary, and that the ten years' limit in some unexplained way impedes the progress of reform in China. As regards the former, it may be observed that the trial period was accepted by the Chinese Government themselves as an essentially just and reasonable arrangement to ensure that the object of the steps taken by the Govern- ment of India for the gradual suppression of a hitherto legal traffic should not be frustrated by a want of corresponding restrictive action on the part of the Chinese authorities.
Nothing has since occurred to throw doubt on the wisdom of the arrangement agreed to. According to the figures supplied to the Shanghae Commission by the Chinese delegates, the normal production of opium in China at the time of the agree- ment was eleven times as great as the import from India, and even in 1908 the diminished production (on the most favourable estimate of the progress of the reforms), was eight times the amount of the import. The essence of the agreement of 1907 was that this huge production should "diminish pari passu with the import, and that satisfactory evidence of this, as regards the first three years, should be furnished for the assurance of the Indian Government at the end of 1910. Judging from the very imperfect nature of the returns and reports which the Chinese delegates were this year able to furnish, the experimental period would seem to be by no means excessive. As regards the ten years' limit, it in no way prevents the Chinese Government from ante-dating the time by which the production of opium in China is to cease. Of this the Chinese Government is well aware. But the period was deliberately proposed by the Chinese Government itself as being the shortest length of time within which so gigantic a reform might be expected to be effectively accomplished. It may prove to be unnecessarily long, but of this there is no satis- factory evidence at present nor apparently can there be for some time to come.
Revision of the Treaties.-The committee urge that China should be given by the treaty Powers a similar right in respect of opium to that lately given her by those Powers in respect of morphia. The cases are not analogous. China produces no morphia, has never legalised its use, and has on those grounds obtained the assent of
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