J
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
5793
[January 27 EB |!
SECTION 2.
[3016]
No. 1.
(No. 15.)
(Telegraphic.) R.
Sir Edward Grey to Sir J. Jordan.
Foreign Office, January, 27, 1911. MY telegram No. 6 of 11th January: Opium, and your telegram No. 17 of 23rd January.
Government of India's telegram of 11th January repeated to you.
As regards extinction of Indian opium trade before 1917, His Majesty's Govern- ment are willing that an assurance should be given to the Chinese Government in the form described by the Government of India, provided that an agreement in all other respects satisfactory has been previously arrived at.
As regards the extinction of Indian trade by provinces, if the Chinese Government should press for this, notwithstanding your apprehension that it may prove imprac- ticable, and if a satisfactory agreement on other points is reached, an undertaking might be given that His Majesty's Government, un proof being afforded to the satisfaction of Sir A. Hosie or his successors that opium cultivation has been permanently suppressed in a province and the import of native opium into it genuinely stopped, will assent to the cessation of the issue of transit passes for foreign opium to that province. As this would be a relinquishment of the right of transit secured by the additional article of the Chefoo Convention, the previous express assent of His Majesty's Government in each case would not be an unreasonable stipulation.
As regards "earmarking," His Majesty's Government have nothing to add to the views of the Government of India as to the conditions on which it would be continued and would eventually be made effective by treaty revision.
I authorise you to make a communication to the Chinese Government in the above sense, and to resume negotiations.
[1857 dd-2]