[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
O
[7390]
CO
6653
[February 27.]
SECTION 1.
17 MAR
No. 1.
Sir,
India Office to Foreign Office.~(Received February 27.)
India Office, February 27, 1911. WITH reference to your letter of the 18th February, inviting Lord Crewe's observations on Sir J. Jordan's telegram No. 51, enclosed therein, on the subject of the opium negotiations with China, I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to forward, for Sir E. Grey's information, a copy of a telegram from the Government of India, the reference in the first line of which should apparently be to Sir J. Jordan's telegram above quoted.
I am to suggest that Sir J. Jordan, to whom the Government of India's telegram was repeated, might be asked whether he has any further observations to offer in the light of their further statement of their position.
I am, &c.
EDWIN S. MONTAGUE.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Government of India to the Earl of Crewe.
(Telegraphic.) R.
February 21, 1911. OPIUM negotiations. Telegram No. 142 (sie ? No. 51) from His Majesty's Minister at Peking to Foreign
Office.
Seeing that there is evidently misconception somewhere as to the scope and intention of this proposal originated in our telegram No. 16 of the 18th ultimo, we desire to state again, as follows, what our position is
1. We quite agree-
(a.) That if the Chinese Government obtain the consent of the Powers to the exclusion of uncertified opium, there should be a limit of at least six months before exclusion comes into operation;
(b.) That all opium, certified or uncertified, has at present an equal right to enter China;
it. (c.) That all uncertified opium must take its chance, in whatever year may have been sold or exported, of getting into China before the expiration of the time limit; and
(d.) That all uncertified opium, in whatever year it may have been sold or exported, will be equally excluded after the expiration of the time limit.
2. Our fear is that the Chinese, after exclusion comes into operation, will subject uncertified opium then in the country, on the pretence that its status is inferior, to unfair discrimination.
3. Such discrimination might, we consider, possibly be prevented, if we were to list and grant special certificates to all opium sold or issued before the end of 1910; that these certificates would entitle opium to enter China after the expiration of the time limit we do not suggest, nor do we suggest that such certificates should be given to opium sold by us after the end of 1910 for Singapore and other non-Chinese markets, which will have had no kind of guarantee from us that its entry into China will be allowed.
We hope that our position will, in the light of this explanation, be clearer to Sir J. Jordan, whose great assistance we value.
(Repeated to Peking.)
[1897 dd-1]
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