[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
78
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[April 3.]
SECTION 1.
[12138]
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey-(Received April 3.)
(No. 110.) Sir,
Peking, March 11, 1911.
I HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith copy of a memorandum drawn up by the acting commercial attaché on the trade in foreign opium at the treaty ports in the year 1910. This statement has been compiled from information furnished by the consuls in response to a circular which I addressed to them in December last, and I venture to draw your attention to some of its salient features.
The total import of Indian opium was 30,705 chests for 1910 as against 43,316 chests in the preceding year. The average value of the drug was more than double of that of 1909, and though the import was 12,611 chests less than in 1909, the value was 19,000,000 taels (2,558,0734) more than the 1909 total.
The customs consolidated duty on a trade valued at 7,378,4711. amounted to only 525,5701, or 197,5101. less than in the previous year.
These figures when published, as they soon will be, are certain to furnish Chinese critics of our opium policy with material for some striking contrasts. They know already that while their revenue from Indian opium has declined during 1910, the receipts of the Indian Government from the same source have exceeded the original estimate by nearly 3,000,000l., and they will naturally hold that we cannot expect China to be content with a revenue of 500,000l. upon an article from which India derived last year over 7,000,000l. Indefensible as the policy of the Cantou Government in exacting extra levies upon opium may be in theory from a treaty point of view, it will certainly be held to be amply justified on grounds of equity.
But the taxation of foreign opium is a minor consideration with the Chinese at present its total suppression in the not distant future is their avowed aim and object, and practical statesmanship should, I venture to think, make preparations for this eventuality. The extinction of poppy cultivation in the great opium-producing province of Szechuan marks, in my opinion, the turning-point in the great task which China set herself three years ago, and unless there is a set-back, which is always a possibility in such a movement, I see no reason to doubt the conviction expressed by many Chinese that the programme of opium suppression will be completed in two years. Even at the present moment there are not a few leading Chinese who consider that, but for the Indian import, they are already in a position to carry out the policy to which they have adhered from the outset--the stoppage of the supply. And this is the danger which appears to me to threaten us in the future. Another season's prohibition, as successful as the last, will practically cut off the native supply, and we shall then be exposed to agitation against the continuance of the Indian trade which it will be difficult
to resist.
It may be that the conclusion of an arrangement with China, of which there is unfortunately little prospect at present, will prevent such sudden dislocation of a valuable trade with our Tadian Empire, but all the indications at present point to a respite of this kind not being of very long duration.
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN,
Enclosure in No. 1.
Memorandum by Mr. Fox on Trade in Foreign Opium at the Treaty Ports in 1910. (Compiled from the replies of His Majesty's Consuls to Legation Circular of December 14, 1910.)
THE principal treaty ports importing foreign opium are, in the order named, Shanghai, Canton, Swatow, Amoy, Foochow, Chinkiang, Wuhu, Kiukiang, Hangchow, and Ningpo. Canton and the southern ports, as far north as Foochow, are supplied from Hong Kong; the Yang-tsze and North China ports derive their supplies from
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