i
AY
J
CONFIDENTIA L.
Hongkong.
My Lord,
C.0.
30677
RECE
(REG2 6 DCT-10
1447
Goverment House,
Hongkong, 5th.September,1910.
With reference to my Confidential
20
Despatch of the 13th. ultimo forwarding a Resolution by
nine Banks in the Colony on the subject of the disorganiz-
-ation of the Opium Trade, the following information which
I have been at some pains to collect and for the accuracy
of which I can vouch shows the magnitude of the financial
crisis which the action of the Viceroy has induced.
2.
Since the imposition of the new
Regulations and Tax in the Kwangtung Province clearances
of Indian Opium had been on a very small scale and at the
date of the Resolution sales of the drug had practically
ceased with the result that the accumulation of Indian
Opium in Hongkong and Shanghai amounted to 24,000 chests
representing a value at current quotations of over
$40,000,000 though the actual cost was probably consider-
-ably higher. Of this accumulation about 25 per centum was
RIGHT HONOURABLE
held
THE EARL OF CREWE,
80.1
&C...
B&C • >
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