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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM.
[June 10] CO
CONFIDENTIAL.
[20712]
No. 1.
SECTION 320142
RECE Rrce 1 JUL 10
Sir,
India Office to Foreign Office.--(Received June 10.)
India Office, June 9, 1910.
I AM directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, dated the 13th May, 1910, on the subject of the Anglo-Chinese agreement for the progressive reduction of the Indian opium trade.
In reply, I am to say that Mr. Max Müller, in his letter to Prince Ch'ing of the 20th April, has correctly described the nature of the agreement under which the Indian Government undertook to reduce with effect from 1908 the total export of opium from India to all countries beyond seas by one-tenth in the first year, two-tenths in the second, and three-tenths in the third. I am to invite a reference to the telegram (No. 2, dated the 4th January, 1908) sent by the Foreign Office to Sir John Jordan at the time when the proposals of His Majesty's Government for restricting the opium trade were under discussion at Peking, which clearly explained for the information of the Chinese Government that the choice lay between direct restriction applied in China of opium imports into treaty ports, and indirect restriction applied in India by limitation of the total export from India to all countries; that His Majesty's Government was prepared to leave the choice to the Chinese Government; but that the first alternative would require a convention which, to be made effective, would have to be accepted by other Powers. It was not overlooked, as will be seen from the telegram, that the second alternative did not necessarily provide that in each year the import of Indian opium into China would be diminished by exactly one-tenth; that the Indian Government could not control the final destination of opium leaving India; and that the Chinese Government would have to be content if they adopted it with the indirect effect which the progressive restriction of the Indian trade must in the long run have ou imports into China. It is, therefore, hardly correct to say that the eventuality to which Mr. Max Müller refers was not foreseen at the time.
I am also to point out that when the agreement was made some considerable stocks of opium existed in Hong Kong and other places outside of China and India, and that it is probable that the excess import of which the Chinese Government complain has been supplied from these stocks. As these stocks are worked off, the effect of the progressive reduction of exports from India should become more and more apparent in the Chinese import returns. It is not clear whether Mr. Max Müller has taken this factor into consideraiion.
Lord Morley is anxious to come to the assistance of the Chinese Government in any reasonable way. Sir Edward Grey in his despatch No. 132, dated the 20th April, 1910, has instructed Mr. Max Müller to offer that Government an extension of the agreement for another three years on certain conditions. I am to suggest that Mr. Max Müller should be requested, if he finds the Chinese Government disposed to accept the offer, to ascertain from them whether they have any practical proposal to make for supplementing the indirect restriction enforced by the Indian Government,, or for substituting for it direct progressive restriction of import at the treaty ports. It should
not be overlooked that opium after leaving India and before reaching China can pass into the bands of the nationals of other countries, and that, consequently, uo restriction at the treaty ports can be effective unless and until the Chinese Government obtain the concurrence of all the Powers. It has taken about seven years to secure the agreement of other Powers to article 11 of the Anglo-Chinese commercial treaty of September 1902 on the subject of the prohibition of the imports of morphia.
It may
be inferred from Mr. Max Müller's letter and the correspondence accom- panying it that the Chinese Government is chiefly influenced by the apprehension that at the end of ten years (assuming that the present agreement on the basis of indirect restriction continues to operate) the Indian opium trade with China will still be of some magnitude. This apprehension would be removed if the Chinese Government were informed that on the expiry of the full term of ten years, if the conditions as to pari passu reduction of production in China had been fulfilled, His Majesty's Government
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