[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
D)
[41028]
CO 36748
November 11.]
SECTION 1.
Rece
REG 1 DEC 10
No. 1.
Sir,
India Office to Foreign Office,→(Received November 11)
India Office, November 10, 1910. 1 AM directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated the 31st October, 1910, and in reply to say that the Earl of Crewe is of Sir Edward Grey's opinion that the Government of India, in criticising the attitude of Mr. Max Müller on the opium question, have not taken sufficient account of the difficulty of his task, or of the limitations which a policy of sympathetic co-operation with the Chinese Government necessarily imposes upon the action of His Majesty's representative in that country.
For this reason the Government of India were instructed to repeat to Peking the latter portion only of their telegram of the 15th October, the first three paragraphs, . which reflected on the attitude of His Majesty's chargé d'affaires, being omitted.
In Sir R. Ritchie's letter of the 12th October, 1910, commenting on the representations of Messrs. Sassoon, the view was expressed that Mr. Max Müller had not been wanting in firmness or insistency, and that the amount of pressure which His Majesty's Government might be disposed to exercise upon the Chinese Government was limited. The Earl of Crewe adheres to this opinion.
I am, &c.
EDWIN S. MONTAGU.
[2980 -1]
The
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