f
2
discuss, and in particular they consider that the following matters should be excluded from consideration by the conference :-
1. The arrangement made between His Majesty's Government and China respecting the progressive restriction of opium imports and of opium production in
China.
2. Other existing treaties between the two countries.
I should also draw your Excellency's attention to the fact that in item (a) of the programme the epithet "uniform" is opposed to the express finding of the Shanghai Commission. The commission recognised that the production, manufacture, and distribution of opium could not be subjected to uniform laws, and it appears undesirable to His Majesty's Government, in view of this finding, that the question should again be raised.
I am to express the hope that you will, in communicating the purport of these observations to your Government, add the assurance that if the conditions which His Majesty's Government have thought it necessary to propose as indispensable to the success of a conference can be complied with, they will be glad to co-operate with the project of conventionalising the resolutions of the Shanghai Commission by means of an international conference.
I have, &c.
E. GREY.
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
[B]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[33412]
No. 1.
CO 3J224
Arca Rros 3 OCT 10) [September 11J
SECTION 1.
India Office to Foreign Office.--(Received September 14.)
India Office, September 14, 1910.
Sir,
I AM directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 25th August on the subject of the date for the assembling of the proposed Opium Conference at The Hague, and to suggest that a reply should be made to The Hague Government in the sense that His Majesty's Government have asked the Government of the United States for assurances on certain points and for assent to certain conditions, and that until they have received and considered the reply they are not in a position to intimate their intention to participate in the proposed conference or to suggest a date for the meeting.
With reference to your further letter of the 26th August, 1910, I am directed to inform you that Viscount Morley concurs in the terms of the draft reply to the United States Ambassador, subject to the amendments suggested in the margin of the enclosed * and assents to the proposal to reserve for future consideration, after Sir C. Clenienti Smith's views have been ascertained, the question of the memorandum on Dr. Wright's report.
copy,
With reference to the assurance given in the draft reply as to the enquiries set on foot in this country, I am to suggest that the Board of Trade should be requested to commence the necessary enquiries relating to the manufacture, export, and trade in morphia and cocaine in this country, to consider and advise as to the restrictions to which these might be made subject, and to state when the enquiries are likely to be completed.
I am, &c.
COLIN G. CAMPBELL.
133
To Mr. Whitelaw Reid.
[2890 -1]