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be premature. In our judgment, this general scheme, which finds its appropriate culmination in the proposal to form a standing international commission, should be decisively negatived as far as Great Britain is concerned, and if it should at any time in the future be found convenient to deal by international agreement with isolated branches of the opium question, such as the manufacture and distribution of morphine or the regulation of opium exports in the interests of prohibitionist countries, we trust that the distinction between concerted action confined to these specified purposes and the larger proposals now before us will be unhesitatingly asserted as a condition of participation.
11. The Shanghai Commission's recommendations may be taken as exhaustive, apart from the one subject which they considered to be inherently beyond their scope, , the discussion of proposals to set aside the treaty and diplomatic arrangements subsisting between Great Britain and China. This question is accordingly revived in the American proposals. We need hardly emphasise our opinion that this is not a matter on which His Majesty's Government should seek the advice of other Powers. But we desire to add certain further observations in deference to the body of sincere, but, as we think, imperfectly informed, British opinion on this question.
12. In the first place, it has been urged that the existing agreement with China, contemplating the suppression of opium cultivation in that country in ten years and the simultaneous extinction of the Indian trade, is not genuinely acceptable to China herself. As regards this point, it should be remembered that the agreement was arranged on the initiative of the Chinese Government, who, as we understand from Sir John Jordan's letter to Sir Edward Grey, No. 391, dated the 30th September, 1906, were encouraged to put forward proposals by the favourable reception which bis Excellency Tong Shoa-Yi represented that he had received when he approached us on that subject informally during his visit to India in 1905, and only a year ago the Chinese Government reiterated their satisfaction with the terms of the agreement. There is no reason to fear that China will hesitate to bring to notice, through the ordinary diplomatic channels, any point on which experience may show that the agreement requires modification, or to suppose that her representations will fail to receive the sympathetic attention of His Majesty's Government.
13. Secondly, it has been suggested that the terms of the existing treaties are being enforced in such a manner as to prevent China from taking proper steps to control distribution, sale, and consumption. The allusion here is to representations made to the Central Government in regard to arbitrary acts of interference and of unfair discrimina- tion against foreign opium on the part of local officials. It should be realised that such representations are not made with the object of enforcing a harsh and narrow construc- tion of old treaties, but are justifiable protests against acts which violate the whole intention and spirit of the ten years' agreement. If opium is to be imported at all, as the agreement contemplates, it must clearly be allowed the proper trade facilities.
14. Thirdly, we would emphasise the fact that this arbitrary interference with the automatically diminishing trade in foreign opium is in no way necessary to the successful prosecution of China's policy of extinguishing the use of opium throughout her dominions. As Mr. Max Müller's report clearly shows, it is now recognised by the Chinese Government themselves, as well as by His Majesty's Minister at Peking, and, we should think, by every competent observer, that the only means by which China can hope to extinguish the local production within the time which she has allowed herself is by uprooting the poppy wherever it is grown. If she can effect this, the ten years' agreement continues to be operative, and China thus secures the withdrawal of the foreign opium also. If, however, she fails in her direct attack on cultivation, she cannot establish either a monopoly system or any other form of effective regulation, complete control over cultivation being necessarily the foundation and starting point of all the more elaborate methods.
15. The truth on this question is that no more sinister advice can be given to China than the recommendation that she should turn aside from her straightforward policy of destroying the poppy, to build up a monopoly or other regulating system, the revenue from which would offer an almost irresistible temptation. Nor can there be any doubt that the condition which obliges China to suppress her own production before she can wholly get rid of the foreign imports has operated indirectly as a valuable safeguard and incentive, partly by enlisting on the side of the anti-opium movement in China the sympathies of the anti-foreign element, and partly because it requires her to give proof to the world of actual achievement.
16. It is now admitted by the Chinese Government that no trustworthy statistics can be given demonstrating the progress made in the reduction of cultivation. In their absence, and subject to suitable guarantees as regards the future, we are ready, as we
have recently informed your Lordship, to accept indirect evidence of her sincerity and of her partial success, but it is clear that a long time must still elapse before that success can be complete. It is equally true that time must be allowed before the cultivation in India for the China trade can fairly be suppressed, or the entire Indian revenue from that trade abandoned, and an agreement which gives a period of preparation to each country is an equitable one. We may observe in this connection, repeating words recently used by your Lordship and Sir Edward Grey, that "it is a policy of doubtful expediency to disparage and hold of no account what has been done, and to press for a reopening of the case before a fair trial has been given to engagements voluntarily concluded by the responsible Governments." The assistance given to China under this agreement has already severely affected the native States, and, as regards British India, has now compelled us to impose additional taxation. We are not disposed to volunteer further sacrifices at the cost of the Indian tax-payer.
We have, &c.
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MINTO.
O'M. CREAGH.
J. O. MILLER.
G. FLEETWOOD WILSON.
S. P. SINHA.
B. ROBERTSON.
JL. JENKINS.
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