414
slightest prospect of getting it adopted.
On the general question I unhesitatingly
advise against an acceptance of the proposal now put
forward by the Government of the United States. It
must be patent that in view of the action of His
Majesty's Government in regard to the closing of the
Opium Divans in the Far Eastern Colonies - to the
arrangements now initiated, and only initiated, for
exercising a greater control over the trade and use
of opium in those Colonies to the fact that China
is still in the throes of its gigantic struggle to
suppress the cultivation of the poppy which no Power
can help her to carry on and that India must
herself work out the many excessively difficult
problems which she has already begun to study
would, I submit, have only a hampering and most
embarrassing effect if at this juncture those who are
charged with the administ ration of India and the
Eastern Colonies had before them the appointment of an
International Conference which has the poweras
proposed of dealing definitely with all the subjects
enumerated in the United States programme .
-
-
it
It seems to me wholly premature to hold
such a Conference. It cannot yet be clear in which
direction, for instance, the British Government could
obtain assistance from other Governments by an
International Convention. Even the United States
have not had time to judge of the effect of their
recent legislation in consequence of which, since
April