(This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Cove!
13345
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
RECO
PEGS 25
R [April 19
SECTION 1.
||
81
[12537]
Sir,
No. 1.
India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received April 5.)
India Office, April 4, 1911. WITH reference to your letter of the 1st April, 1911, enclosing copy of Sir John Jordan's telegram No. 89 R, dated the 31st March, 1911, on the subject of opium negotiations with China, I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to suggest that Sir John Jordan should be asked whether the Chinese present proposal to omit the words "under transit pass" is not identical in substance with the proposal described in his telegram, No. 80, of the 22nd March, and acquiesced in by the Government of India in their telegram of the 25th March.
If it is identical, it is not clear why the form of words employed in his telegram of the 22nd March should not be adopted, and a proviso added to the draft clause prohibiting Indian import into any treaty port (Canton and Shanghai excepted) in a province where cultivation and importation of native opium have been suppressed.
If it is not identical, he might be requested to explain its exact effect as compared with the proposal described in his telegram of the 22nd March.
I am, &c.
R. RITCHIE.
May
[1973 e-
-1]
1