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2
A letter on the subject signed by all these firms has since been received by the chamber of commerce, a copy of which I beg to enclose for your Excellency's information.
We are given to understand that Mr. Consul-General Fox at Canton has endeavoured to get this question set right, but that the latest interview he had had with the Viceroy was of a very unsatisfactory nature.
The restrictions which the Chinese authorities are now attempting to impose upon the trade in foreign opium are much the same as those of which we complained last year when the question was fully set forth in our telegram to your Excellency of the 24th September, 1905, advised in our letter of the 9th October, 1908, with which we forwarded a copy of a letter from the opium merchants in Hong Kong dated the 23rd September, 1908.
These letters and the enclosures so fully explained the situation that it does not seem necessary to again go over the ground.
The arguments which were then put forward against the action on the part of the Chinese officials apply with equal force in the present instance and were practically admitted by your Excellency as would appear from the concluding paragraph of your despatch to the governor of Hong Kong, dated the 5th February, 1909, when you suggested that foreign opium should be excluded from the regulations which had been drawn up to control the wholesale trade.
We trust therefore that your Excellency will be good enough to again take the matter up with the Wai-wu Pu and with the same happy result that attended your efforts last autumn.
I have, &c.
E. A. HEWETT, Chairman.
P.S. Since writing the above, I have received a letter from the Hong Kong Government which gives your cable reply to the chamber's telegram.
I would ask you to accept the best thanks of the chamber for your prompt action towards the protection of British trade.
E. A. H.
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Government have given the Chinese Government most practical support by definitely reducing shipments of opium from India to China, and in the course of a few years this trade will entirely cease; therefore these vexations regulations of the Chinese Government are absolutely unnecessary as far as the trade in foreign opium is concerned, and we must conclude that they are being imposed by them in order to derive financial advantage from the situation.
The fact that for a considerable time the Kwantung authorities have with impunity been infringing the treaties and ignoring the promise given to the British Minister by the Wai-wu Pu has led to these obstructive regulations being enforced in other districts, and complaints have been received from Hoihow, Nam Hung, and Watin to the effect that monopolies are being established, and in Wutin (Fokien province) the importation of foreign opium has been prohibited.
Only recently Sir Edward Grey, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, stated in Parliament that, while he is prepared to give legitimate support to the Chinese Goverument, the treaties must be firmly adhered to. We maintain that the British Government have given the Chinese practical proof of their desire to co-operate with them by reducing the yearly import of foreign opium into China, and in consideration of this generous arrangement the Chinese should on their part abide by the treaties and by their undertaking.
We trust the Chamber will bring the strongest pressure to bear on the various authorities concerned with a view of protecting the opiuin trade during the few years left before it totally ceases, This protection is, we think, rightly due to British merchants, who are within a brief period compelled to give up a trade in which they have been engaged for the past seventy or eighty years.
We have, &c. David Sassoon and Co. (Limited),
E. SHELLIM, Manager.
E. D. SASSOON AND Co.
S. J. DAVID AND CO.
E. PABANEY.
CAWASJEE PALLANJEE AND Co.
H. M. II. NEMANZEE (by his Attorney,
H. A. Shirazi).
F. P. TALATI,
M. H. E. ELLIAS.
ABDOOLALLY EBRAHIM AND Co.
Inclosure 3 in No. 1.
British Opium Firms to Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce.
Sir,
Hong Kong, September 29, 1909. WE have the honour to bring to your notice the fact that the opium regulations that the Kwangtung authorities attempted to bring into force last year, and which, through the energetic action of His Britannic Majesty's Minister, were promptly withdrawn, have again been revived. It is needless to trouble you with a recital of the details, as same are very fully set forth in a letter to Mr. H. H. Fox, His Britannic Majesty's acting consul-general at Canton, dated the 23rd September, 1908, and to the Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, dated the 9th December, 1908, which appeared in the report of the chamber of commerce for last year. Recently the Kwangtung authorities, contrary to the undertaking given by the Wai-wu Pu to His Britannic Majesty's Minister that the regulations would apply to native opium only, have taken definite action by imprisoning a partner in the Chuen Cheong opium hong in August last and subsequently closing up the shop. Mr. H. H. Fox bas heen actively engaged in endeavouring to prevent this arbitrary enforcement of the regulations, but has been unsuccessful, and has had to refer the matter to His Britannic Majesty's Minister at Peking. The Viceroy at Canton, in a despatch to Mr. Fox, while ignoring the various arguments placed before him, states that it is the duty of the Chinese Government to carry out the edicts with the utmost energy, "as the foreign Powers were unanimous in their sympathetic assistance," and furthermore lays stress on the desire of the Hong Kong Government to prevent the smuggling of opium into Hong Kong as an excuse for levying increased taxation on opium in Canton. We beg to enclose copy of the Viceroy's despatch to Mr. Fox, dated Canton, the 17th September, 1909, for your information. The existence of treaties between China and foreign Powers is entirely ignored; neither is any reference made to the undertaking given barely a year ago to the British Minister by the Wai-wu Pu, to which we have referred in the first part of our letter.
A most important fact to which we beg to draw your attention is that the Indian
Sir,
Inclosure 4 in No. 1.
Viceroy Yuan to Consul Fox.
Canton, September 17, 1909. WITH reference to your despatch to my predecessor dated the 27th August, 1909, on the subject of the new regulations for the limitation of the sale of raw opium, stating that you had learnt that the Opium Prohibition Bureau had suddenly, without warning, arrested the manager of the Chuan Fu Cheng raw opium shop in the Hsing Lung Street, you requested that a careful enquiry might be made into the circumstances.
On receipt of your despatch, the Acting Viceroy Hu instructed the bureau to make an enquiry and report, and a note was at the same time sent to you in reply. The officials of the bureau state that, by the order of the late Viceroy Chang, dated February-March, it became their duty to issue licences to shops selling raw opium and to individual buyers. This procedure was in accordance with the regulations submitted to the Throne by the Government Council, and approved. A proclamation was issued at the time, and all raw opium dealers were summoned to the bureau and commanded to observe the regulations. The statement that no warning was given is therefore difficult to understand.
For
The raw opium shops, however, while professing acquiescence, secretly ignored the regulations, with the result that very few people took out buying licences. several months past, with a reckless indifference to instructions, the dealers have been illicitly selling opium in this way. The bureau had discovered that ten or more of the raw opium shops had been obeying the regulations, and were willing to carry out