[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majestys Government.]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
R
C
408
Rece [February 14-MAR 10,
SECTION 1
[5267]
No. 1.
Edinburgh Committee for the Suppression of the Indo-Chinese Opium Traffic to Foreign Office. (Received February 14.)
Dear Sir,
8, Greenbank Terrace, February 12, 1910. IN answer to your letter of the 8th December I beg to enclose joint reply from Edinburgh and London Anti-Opium Organisations.
I am instructed by our executive to say that, in the event of your answering our letter in detail, a meeting of our General Committee will at once be convened to consider your communication.
I am, &c.
G. S. MUIR.
Sir,
Enclosure in No. 1.
London and Edinburgh Anti-Opium Organisations to Foreign Office.
THE Edinburgh Anti-Opium Committee, in replying to your letter of the 9th December, desire to associate themselves with the London board. You were kind enough to send a copy of your letter to them, and what follows is accordingly the unanimous opinion of the London and Edinburgh Anti-Opium Organisations.
In all our communications to you we place in the forefront our heartfelt appreciation of what you and Lord Morley have recently done. We regard the ten years' arrange- ment to be a great advance on the part of the British Government as compared with their former attitude. We would not for a moment disparage or hold of no account the present agreement, yet we do not hesitate to say that it does not satisfy our conscience or come up to our conception of what Britain owes to China by way of reparation and assistance.
Tong Shao-Yi, the eminent statesman who initiated the reform movement, thought from the first that a short and sharp struggle was more likely to be efficacious than a prolonged and gradual reduction. We note from the recent White Paper ("China No. 3, 1909") that both the Imperial and Provincial Governments have now come to be of the same opinion. This White Paper, issued since the date of your letter under reply, explains the increased opium importation down the Yang-tsze in 1909, and affords reason to anticipate that the present year will show a great reduction of this traffic. Reports recently received from Eastern Szechuan, where there was an increased cultivation of the poppy in the season 1908-9, confirm these anticipations, and show that in part, at least, of this district prohibition has been resolutely enforced and quietly accepted during the present season.
It appears that seven of the eighteen provinces of China proper,* in two of which scarcely any poppy has ever been grown, are now virtually free of cultivation, while in no fewer than nine orders have been issued that it cease this year. In one other it is to cease in 1911, and in the remaining province, while consumption is still very unsatisfactory, there is but little opium produced, so that prohibition in the other districts must speedily affect it. In Manchuria poppy cultivation had ceased in one province, and was to cease that year in the other two. Mr. Max Müller says that the progress has been most marked where cultivation was definitely prohibited, and adds, "We are justified in looking forward to similar results in the further provinces where the growth of the poppy has been forbidden.”
Shansi, Yunoan, Fukien, Hunan, Kuangtung, with Kiangsi aud Kuangsi, in which but little poppy has ever been grown.
† Chibli, Sbantung, Houau, Kiangsu, Anhui, Szechuan, Shensi, Kausu, and Kueichow,
Cheklang.
Hapei.
[2836 0-1