[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM,
CONFIDENTIAL.
[38354]
No. 1.
[October 21.]
CO 34472
SECTION 2.
Revo NOV 10
Sir,
India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received October 21.)
India Office, October 21, 1910. WITH reference to your letter dated the 30th September, 1910, enclosing copy of Mr. Max Müller's telegram No. 162, dated the 29th September, on the subject of the China opium arrangement, I am directed by the Secretary of State for ludia in Council to forward, for the information of Sir Edward Grey, a copy of a telegram from the Viceroy, conveying the views of the Government of India on Mr. Max Müller's proposals for prolonging for a further term of seven years the arrangement with China.
The Government of India have been instructed to repeat to Peking the latter part of the Viceroy's telegram containing the specific recommendations of the Government of India on the several conditions suggested by Mr. Max Müller.
Viscount Morley would suggest, if Sir Edward Grey sees no objection, that Mr. Max Müller should be instructed to continue his negotiations with the Chinese be Government on the basis of the conditions he has suggested, modified so far as may practicable in the direction of the Government of India's recommendations.
I am to enclose the draft of a telegram* which may serve to explain to His Majesty's chargé d'affaires the points in which his conditions would require to be modified in order to conform to those recommendations.
I am, &c.
COLIN G. CAMPBELL
Enclosure in No. 1.
Government of India to Viscount Morley.
October 15, 1910. (Telegraphic.) P.
OPIUM Max Müller's telegrams Nos. 159, 161, and 162, and your telegram of the 3rd October.
We wish to explain our view of the position in general, so far as we are informed of it, before discussing the proposals of China. The policy of assisting Chinese reforms has our cordial support, but there are interests of important trade to safeguard, complicated problems in the Native States to face, and our diminishing revenues, any loss of which we can ill afford, to be protected. The anxiety caused us by the events of the last six months may not have been fully realised, and we must urge that India's interests should be most carefully considered.
The present position is that the spirit of the original agreement has been broken by China by regulations illegally imposed at Canton and other places. By neglecting to take measures in advance to prove that her home production of opium has been reduced, China has failed to demonstrate that her own share in the agreement should be renewed on terms which, while giving no guarantee on her part that our trade will Her hands are receive fair treatment, impose new and burdensome obligations on us.
to be freed and ours tied, as though it were we, and not China, who had infringed the original agreement. This does not appear to us to be politically desirable or in accordance with equity.
Further, an invitation has been extended to China to propose additional measures for our reduction of export, and she has been encouraged to revive the proposal that We consider that if the British the consolidated import duty should be increased. Minister had pressed our proposals of last March these developments would have been aanecessary for the present. Our position has been weakened in the interval owing to the frequent occasions on which British protests against the illegalities at Canton have been rebuffed, and to the attitude initially assumed by British Minister in respect of the grievances fictitiously raised by China regarding the diversion of our trade with
* See telegram to Peking No. 138, October 24, 1910.
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