This Document is the Froperty of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
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10539
[B]
REOD Rr18 MAY 11
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[May 2.]
SECTION 2.
[16412]
No. I.
Sir,
India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received May 2.)
India Office, May 1, 1911. I AM directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to acknowledge the receipt of 'Sir Francis Campbell's letter of the 26th April, enclosing a copy of the Netherlands Minister's note of the 22nd April regarding the proposed International Opium Conference, and to say in reply that Lord Morley accepts the view expressed in Sir E. Grey's letter to Baron Gericke of the 31st January last, that it is undesirable to convene a conference until the participating Powers are agreed in principle as to the necessity for placing effective restrictions on the manufacture, sale, and distribution of morphia and cocaine. Lord Morley considers that the enquiry made by the Netherlands Minister, as to whether the circumstances reported in his present letter constitute an obstacle, from the point of view of His Majesty's Government, to the assembling of the proposed conference this year, should be answered in the affirmative.
The International Opium Commission found, as was stated in Sir E. Grey's letter of the 31st January to Baron Gericke, that the unrestricted manufacture, sale, and distribution of morphia constituted a grave danger, and that drastic measures of an international character were necessary, The same applies to cocaine. It is essential to secure that the problem of controlling the traffic in these drugs should not be shelved when the opium question comes under international consideration. The conference offers the best chance of securing effective control over the manufacture, sale, and distribution of these drugs. In the hope that a preliminary understanding on the point of principle may be arrived at by the Powers, a postponement for the present year of the conference seems desirable.
I am at the same time to refer to paragraph 9 of the Government of India's despatch of the 26th May, 1910, a copy of which was enclosed with my letter of the 1st July. The Government of India there stated that they were prepared, in accordance with the views expressed in the fourth resolution of the international Commission, to prohibit the export of opium to prohibitionist countries, and to take all reasonable supplementary measures to make this prohibition effective. I am to suggest that an intimation might be conveyed to the American Government and to any other Powers interested, that the Government of India are ready to take such action, if desired, independently of the meeting of the proposed conference.
I am, &c.
R. RITCHIE.
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