431
Ju 807+000
Conf
Gu. 30192
that they were the more entitled to fair play and strict
observance of their Treaty rights during the few remaining
years of their annually diminishing business. The consul-
-Coneral, on the other hand, took the view that we have no
grounds of protest unless taxation were differential (8th.
June, 1910) and that the tax being levied on the actual
weight of prepared opium collected from the boiler he
could not reasonably interfere (8th. June, 1910). He could
not see his way to raise objection against the view that
the Canton Officials were at liberty to decide who may and
who may not handle opium and under what conditions (18th.
August, 1910). He does not propose to interfere with
punishment of Chinese for transgressing the laws of their
own country (24th. August, 1910) and he has therefore
declined to protest against seizures of opium owing to
infraction by those who had charge of it of the established
regulations, i.e. the very regulations to which His
Majesty's Government has taken exception. When asked by the
Foreign Secretary of the Viceroy to suggest a modus
vivendi he proposed an extension of the time allowed for
boiling Raw Opium (18th. August, 1910)
a concession which
had already been shown to be entirely worthless (Despatches
21st. July, 1910, seq.) and which is so described by Mr.
Max